Beacon
by wirewrappedlily
Summary: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark ...there was an ultimatum in Steve's mind that rang clear: find that beacon of light in the rubble, or lose the most infuriatingly lovable man Steve had ever met. Rating subject to change without notice.
1. Chapter 1

Captain Steve Rogers had been a simple man.

He'd been in love with a beautiful dame, and he'd given everything he had to protect his country; his home; and the people he loved.

Steve Rogers wasn't so simple anymore. Nothing was.

Steve Rogers was Captain America, a hero of the decades, and he was in love with Tony Stark.

It wasn't simple, and it was in no way easy.

Tony was larger than life-especially for someone raised through the Depression-but he was _fragile_.

Tony was delicate in a way that Steve didn't fully comprehend. To Steve, Tony was everything the man strutted himself to the world as. But to Tony, he was still a failure, and always would be.

It didn't matter how many experiments went right, how many lives Tony saved, or how many ways Steve tried to convince him that the argument they'd had at first-the words that Tony would probably always carry with him now, no matter the fact that Steve had laid his heart out for Tony to take or destroy as he would-was idiotic and rash and completely untrue.

Steve didn't know how to make it better, and Tony probably wouldn't let him even if he did. It was part of what drove him, the pain. Tony needed to be a failure in the eyes of those he looked up to; those he...those he loved. He needed their disappointment, and he needed their neglect. It was all he'd ever really known, after all. If he was disappointing; if he was something to be shunted aside and ignored, then he had something to fight against-he had something to push him and make him manic and angry and willing to nearly die doing some stupid, reckless experiment.

It had rocked Tony to the foundations when Steve had tackled him to the ground and used his own body as a shield on their third mission as the team. He hadn't been hurt for longer than a couple hours before he was fully healed, but Tony had been sick and despondent and _angry_ for days that Steve had done that: Steve's less breakable body able to take the punishment and willing to do it when Tony was without his armour, caught in the crossfire between SHIELD and some idiot with a penchant for bombs. No amount of shrapnel to Steve's back was going to make him back down from protecting his...from protecting Tony.

The argument had started then. The argument that would eventually lead to Steve using the words "I love you, you idiot" as a weapon to take Tony's whole world down around his ears even as it built up a new one on more solid foundations. It was the kind of argument that would last for decades, if it ever ended at all. Pepper hadn't been able to pick that fight, but Steve...Steve wouldn't stop fighting for Tony if it would save Steve's life to do it.

Steve had been broken and torn at and shredded before. He'd been lost and alone and frozen, even after the thaw. And he knew that it was down to Tony that he burned like he did now. That he had passion now like he'd never known before. Life like he'd never known before. Tony breathed life to him; air to a flame, and there were days when Steve thought for sure it would consume them both.

Steve wasn't a simple man anymore.

He'd fought, he'd fucked, he'd laughed until he cried, and sometimes he'd woken up crying.

Sometimes he'd woken up crying, and there was nothing but the cold dark on his fevered skin. And he couldn't stop the shivers. It was bone-deep, the way he was trembling, and he was helpless and trapped in the dark again, and there was weight pressing in on him from all sides.

One time he'd woken up crying, and Tony had broken into his room, Clint pocketing the lockpick kit Tony had built for him and disappearing back to his level of Stark Tower with a silent wish for them to be okay for once in their goddamn lives.

The light shining from Tony's chest had called him back, and the unsuspecting arms he'd fallen into and wept in the protection of brought Steve the closest to 'okay' he'd been since he'd leapt from a moving car into a moving plane with a kiss from Peggy still on his lips. Maybe it'd been even longer; maybe it'd been since Bucky died.

But Tony was comforting him, warm and strong as he'd made himself calm down, trembling bone-deep still.

Tony hadn't slept, and Steve was shaking so hard that Tony made him lay down to fall back to sleep, so it only happened that Tony sat with him...and then laid down with him...and then Steve woke up to a mess of black hair on his chest and his arms around Tony's compact body. Steve didn't press it, and Tony just shrugged it off and moved on.

Which isn't to say it wasn't awkward; which really isn't to say that Tony didn't end up being basically kidnapped by Captain America when the next nightmare came. Tony was a breathing dreamcatcher, and Steve needed to sleep, even if it was only for a little while, on a daily basis. It made for a happy Pepper when Tony whined to her a week later about sleep schedules being thrown off by Japanese business calls at all hours, which made for Steve's head laying in Tony's lap while the billionaire took care of business, yawning the whole way through. That started Steve touching the small of Tony's back gently when they passed each other in the kitchen, or Tony plunking his chin down on Steve's shoulder to read whatever it was the supersoldier was reading over his shoulder. Steve started reading more; showing up in his lab with a book in hand, reading to Tony as the billionaire worked. Tony had JARVIS bring up a holographic chess set to get Steve's tactically brilliant mind working, and they actually beat each other equally badly, and , for the first time in his life, Tony wasn't even remotely competitive.

Steve had known he was in trouble when Tony had agreed to watching a modern-classic movie marathon with him, and Steve had been more interested in watching Tony nodding off, curled up in his chair, than he was in the gunfighting and explosions. After two hours of some poor guy named John McClane being beaten to worse of a bloody pulp than Steve would ever think anyone could possibly deserve, Steve had a sketchbook page of the most intricate, dark eyes he'd ever drawn. Tony's eyes, when he was concentrating on a problem that was tricky enough to take a moment. It was Steve's favourite of expressions on Tony Stark; mostly because it came every time Tony tried to figure him out, and that had been many, many times.

Steve wasn't a simple man anymore. He'd learned how to cook, how to dance, and how to make Tony Stark pay attention to him fully with just a few words and a sly glance.

He'd fallen in love with Tony for the familiarity; Tony was the best parts of Howard only better, and Steve knew that he could easily be Tony's best friend...and then he was Tony's best friend, and wanted more. When he'd pulled Tony up from his desk and carried him up to bed after a mission that had had Tony spinning his wheels afterwards, trying to make sure it never happened again; Tony didn't say anything about the sleepy kiss Steve had been insane or brave enough to favour on Tony's mouth. In fact, when Tony woke him up the next morning with a coffee-flavoured make-out session, Steve had known it was the right thing to have done.

Tony didn't protest too badly when Steve had insisted that he let the arc reactor shine into the room (using Steve's body heat as blankets was the main reason Tony relented, Steve knew). It was Steve's nightlight, to the point where, when they were called apart by their respective duties, Tony made a light for Steve that looked just like his reactor, and the one time Steve had tried to do without it, he was even less well-rested than he usually was when they were apart, and Tony was wired on caffeine and sleep deprivation. Only Clint had teased them about the three-day absence they'd both taken after that, the both of them finally well-rested and well-fed again when Tony had coaxed Steve that they'd gotten enough sleep, he needed to work and Steve needed to work out, because the one time that he hadn't told Steve that last part, Steve had been thrown through a building and it had taken a little longer than usual for Steve to heal. And Tony would go down with him and do the exercise he was supposed to do, then try to get work done while watching Steve finish his workout (which translated to Tony sitting there drooling while Steve tried to pass his blush off as exertion-produced flush).

Tony was by no means a simple man, though Steve kind of thought that while Tony made his life more complex, he might make Tony's life a little simpler.

Sure, Tony rallied against him sometimes. Tony would pick fights or would try to disappear. He'd avoid Steve until Steve would have been carting them to bed, and then he'd crack, and Steve would smile at him, just to see Tony smile back. He wasn't used to being happy; Steve had learned, and Steve had a way of simply existing near him, and it made him happier than most of his previous relationships combined, so Tony, because while he wasn't used to be happy he also carried in his arc-powered heart, would fight happiness he knew knew would only be temporary. Had to only be temporary. Steve was still working on this one, and planned to do so for the rest of their lives if he had to, because Tony was never not worth fighting for; and maybe Rhodey might have mentioned that to him at some point.

There was a time when Steve had been infected with the psychosis-inducing toxin a villain had thrown at him. Steve couldn't remember much, but he knew that red and gold and _fire_ had suddenly been very, very angry, and Steve had all but curled into a ball at the sight of it. Tony would take a hold of his arm or stop him from leaving the room for months afterwards, his lips ghosting over Steve's in teases that were honestly more intimate than actual kisses, and Tony would whisper to him all the things that negated every insecurity, every self-hatred and every doubt Steve had apparently spilled his guts of that night. Tony fought for him without thinking about it; maybe even without realizing that's what he was doing. Steve, in the fever and the hallucinations, had decided that Tony Stark's arms were the one place he was actually safe; and sane Steve Rogers had to agree to that assessment, laying his head next to the reactor after all was done, and falling asleep with his legs tangled with Tony's because he was in the man's warm grip, and in the cool light of the mechanical heart that wouldn't give up on him. It wasn't until long after that that Steve realized there was a weight missing on his back, and that Tony was the culprit there, as surely as he was the reason Steve was considering a side-career in art again.

The first few times Tony had loaded his room full of art supplies, Steve had been stupefied at the sheer enormity of effort Tony had put into the array that was now Steve's.

It had surprised him; it had left him feeling strange and on just the edge of blushing, always just a little startled, because the time and effort Tony took to giving him a home wasn't something that someone who'd said such horrible things deserved. Especially when Tony wouldn't accept an apology, and wouldn't let him negate every word he'd said. Natasha had stared at him for a long time when he asked her to help him mend the fence and hadn't moved when he'd stuttered over an apology for bugging her; Clint and Thor would have helped him, but they knew nothing about the real Tony Stark, and couldn't make Tony listen anymore than Steve could; and Bruce and Pepper formed a protective tag-team for months, keeping him away from the more-fragile-than-he'd-thought billionaire because he wasn't fit for the man's company, not after that first battle. In the end, it was JARVIS and one Col. James Rhodes that had been his proverbial port in the storm.

Mostly, Rhodey had told him in no uncertain terms that it didn't matter what Tony thought of the relationship he had with Rhodey, Rhodey would find a way to blow Steve up if Steve ever dared to do anything like that again. Coulson, who Tony had gone to the trouble of _bringing back to life_ , dammit, had stood up to Rhodey after that, and then Rhodey had simply stared him down; unbudging and unflinching and with a fire that was very much like the protective streak in Tony Stark himself. A man like that was a best friend to kill for, and Coulson seemed to agree on that analysis.

But now, sprinting over the wreckage of the city with War Machine covering him high overhead, Steve could only think about every time Tony had ever made him cry. It wasn't an accusatory thought, wasn't even really meant to be there, but there was an ultimatum in Steve's mind that rang clear: find that beacon of light in the rubble, or lose the most infuriatingly lovable man Steve had ever met.

Natasha's voice came over the comm, her measured breaths filling Steve with a kind of dread that he had never wanted to experience again after that first time he'd seen Iron Man falling from the sky, and she was summoning him to her with a kind tone to her voice, but all Steve could hear now was buzzing.

War Machine swooped down, and Steve didn't even have to reach up and take hold of the armour to know that for as much as he loved flying with Tony, flying with Rhodey would be hell-if only because they were headed to Steve's death sentence, and Tony wouldn't be around to talk him out of it. Steve touched down next to Natasha where she bent over a pile of rubble, turning her head to him and cutting her eyes to the wreckage that seemed to be tented around something. Steve wanted to be sick immediately, and seeming to sense this, Rhodey moved him, Clint sliding into view as Thor, Bruce and he touched down on Natasha's other side.

It was from a distance and drowned by that infernal buzzing, but Steve was ordered to put his head between his knees, Clint's hand on the back of his neck with enough pressure to make the order surface through the din. Steve stumbled, his legs giving out as he tried to see past Natasha's slim form; past Thor examining the debris. Their voices just made the buzzing in his ears worse, and Steve nearly whimpered, because there was no light cutting through the rubble. Bruce moved to crouch near his legs, his dark brown eyes the wrong shade of brown; his hands unscarred, unstained from hours of working on things that made Steve dizzy to think about. He seemed to be talking to Steve, but Steve couldn't hear him at this point. Clint was crouched on the other side, resting his hand on Steve's knee while he talked, but Steve knew he wasn't talking to him. Clint was maybe one of the few that would understand right now; Clint had almost lost Coulson, it'd been Tony to get Coulson back, and those marks don't really leave, even when it turned out that the rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated.

The first thing Steve heard again was a rumble that felt like it belonged to Thor's storms or the Hulk's rage. But Bruce was still by his legs, and Thor was crouched in front of the rubble as if waiting for something. Then Steve noticed the rubble was moving. It got to a certain point, and Thor dove in, sweeping something out from under the weight of it, and launching himself and whomever it was in his arms back from the groaning shriek of concrete and metal. Steve scrabbled as the mass of broken building stood, and the beacon was blinding him, Tony's faceplate half-shredded as he flipped it up, his skin mottled in bruising beneath, but he was there; alive, and Tony was looking directly at Steve with something that Steve hated to see but couldn't place in his eyes. Thor shifted, and the person in his arms groaned, a flash of metal taking Steve's attention from the man in the suit of armour, if only to make damn sure whoever Tony had curled beneath him and taken a building to the back for wasn't about to start shooting.

It was worse than a gunshot, though, to see the too-long dark hair around familiar, if pale features. The metal-an _arm-_ was hanging limply off Thor's hold to the debris below, and Steve felt like he should be screaming, then wasn't sure that he wasn't.

Tony moved like he'd felt the full weight of the building, kneeling in front of Steve, but not reaching for him, and that thing in his eyes? Steve realized it was vulnerability. Tony looked from the face of Steve's best friend to that of the man himself, and even though the suit may not have been able to take it, Tony decided flying home now would be better for him than staying to see the inevitable happen. He'd managed to get as far as straightening up before Steve had launched to his feet, practically tackling Tony as the damaged suit gave out under him, pieces falling without him meaning them to, disengaged because they could no longer operate. There was a litany of words falling out of Steve's mouth, and even though there was a lot of "god", it wasn't god he was thanking; it was Tony. Tony, for saving himself and saving Steve in the process, let alone the man lying, sprawled and simultaneously barely and instantly recognizable, in a circle of superheroes. Steve pressed his hand over the light shining from Tony's chest, and pressed his face into the man's shoulder, even as he helped the armour automatically disengage rather than trap Tony in a metal coffin. He hadn't agreed with Tony's protocol on that until now; for as much as he knew that Tony was just as deadly outside the suit as in, he had believed if the chips were far enough down that the suit had taken that much damage, Steve wanted it to stay in place and give Tony whatever protection it could manage. Now, he could push the suit off of Tony's shoulders, careful because he knew there had to be bruising even with the protection the tin can afforded him; and he was thankful Tony had that protocol, because he didn't think he'd manage to make it out the other side if he'd gone through the last few hours, only to have Tony hand him his once-dead best friend and end up having to be torn out of the suit. He was fairly sure that he couldn't take that kind of stress at this point.

A guantleted hand ran through his hair as the pieces of suit disengaged, reaching his arms finally, and then Steve could feel Tony's work-worn hand in his hair, the other sliding around the back of his neck. Tony's face pressed into Steve's neck, breathing him in as everything but the boots, which Tony would be able to slip out of the next time he moved, fell to the ruins. He sighed something that sounded like Steve's name, only his voice, soft and loving and cocky and teasing always now, sounded like he was this close to losing it, too.

Thor allowed War Machine to scoop James Buchanan Barnes off his hands, standing and regarding Steve and Tony while Natasha looked Bucky over with all the cold efficiency of an ER doctor. Rhodey's faceplate had flipped up around the time Tony had started talking to them, telling them that he needed someone to pull Bucky out from under him if he was to move the weight of the building without causing him more injury, and the look in Rhodey's eyes as he regarded Steve clinging to his best friend was softer than he would have ever admitted to. Natasha cleared her throat, and nodded to Tony that the man was alright, even though Steve wouldn't release him even a little.

Bruce came up behind Tony, the look in his eyes sunken, far-off as he gestured to Tony, asking Steve without words to make sure that their friend was okay. Steve could see the shaking in his hand, and knew it had nothing to do with anger; this was fear, just like it was for him, and he pressed a kiss to Tony's pulse and released him slowly, keeping his hands bunched in the fabric of Tony's shirt as Bruce moved to their side, letting Tony see him to know what he was doing. Tony was almost skittish now, and Steve's grip tightened reflexively, not following Tony's gaze to the face of the man he'd thought he'd never see again; focussing it on the one that, right now, he knew he'd have trouble living without. Bruce winced in sympathy as he gently felt along Tony's sides, the flash of pain in Tony's breath making Steve want to curl up in their bed and never let Tony out again. Natasha and Bruce's voices became the soft crackle of static as they talked about the injuries they found; Steve could only listen to the still-ragged breaths Tony yanked into his system, then discarded like last year's gossip pages. Steve loved him so much that it physically hurt now, and then Bruce was finished his assessment, Bruce's hand on Steve's arm, and Steve had to focus to get the words through that Tony was okay, but needed to be seen by the medics. Steve had to let Tony be seen by the medics, because while Bruce could look him over working around the super soldier, the SHIELD medics were not nearly so accommodating.

Tony's mouth ticked, and he nodded to Bucky, and Steve felt more than heard him say "go". Steve released his death grip on the Metallica t-shirt Tony had managed to get both grease and bleach on, but he only did it to pull Tony back into his arms until the medics were actually there. Clint may have grumbled something to the effect of "pretty sure they can't get to us in this wreckage, Cap", but Natasha flicking him in the ear was usually enough of a distraction to get Clint off Steve's case. The tremble in Tony's hands didn't belong there anymore, and Steve pulled him tight into his chest, war between his instincts to carry Tony to the medics and his better judgement that Tony usually only allowed that kind of behaviour when they were either far more naked or he was unconscious and therefore unaware of it happening. Instead of letting either side win, Tony pulled gently away, leaning his forehead against Steve's for a moment like it was killing him to step away, and then stepping away. Bruce and Natasha moved in on either side of Tony, closer to being his size than the rest of them were, and as Natasha pulled his arm around her shoulders for him to lean on, Steve wished for a wild minute that he hadn't ended up too tall to fit easily under Tony's arm. Tony had never known him that size, of course; but he wished all the same, even with the sickness and the pain that had come with his old life.

Steve moved behind them, and Clint set his shoulder against Steve's like Steve was the one that needed support; walking between the man he loved and the man he'd spent most of his life with.

Tony had been wearing a t-shirt and shredded jeans in his workshop when they got the call; now, in the chilled night of New York, he was shivering without the climate control of the suit. Steve's suit was too heavy be a help, he knew, but he wanted to shirk the specially-designed scale mail and drape it around Tony to keep him warm. It was too heavy by far for it, especially with the injuries Tony carried now, but he wanted to all the same. By the time they got mostly out of the jagged remains of nearly three city blocks, Coulson was standing by with a team of medics, wrapping Tony in a sweater Steve actually recognized as his own as Tony stood aside to let the medics look over Bucky first. Steve grit his teeth as Tony was whispered to, Coulson's calculating gaze sweeping over him then turning to Clint, who seemed to silently tell him something that had Steve suddenly being the one being looked at by the medics.

Natasha was still studying Tony; her gaze sweeping up and down as her lips thinned, the care with which she wrapped Tony tighter in the sweater for a moment, using her grip on the fabric to rock up on her toes and plant a kiss on Tony's cheek as soft as Steve had ever gotten to see her. Finally, finally, with words about shock and Steve needing rest, the medics turned to Tony, and as Tony was being fussed over and brow-beaten into medical attention, Steve felt his world shift back to him; the sound of War Machine's servos in his ears, so close to being Iron Man's.

"Cap, do you know who that is to Tony Stark?" Rhodey asked quietly, indicating Bucky now laid out on a stretcher, an IV dangling from his good arm, "That is your best friend, yes...it's also the man that killed Howard and Maria Stark...and Edwin Jarvis."


	2. Chapter 2

"Tony!" Steve's voice was a little rougher than he wanted it to be, but that happened when Tony had been injured, and yet still chose to slip Bruce and Natasha (not easy to do when it came to either of them, let alone both) and hide in his lab instead of in the king-size bed that they shared (that, really, they only needed about half of, because Steve loved to pull Tony into his arms like a breathing, glowing teddy bear).

The music shut off automatically for him, and Tony didn't move, sitting at his work table, surrounded by holograms. He was pale and haggard and there was something else in his face that Steve had never seen before, and it looked like resignation. From the man that never gave up.

"Tony," Steve's hands were still shaky as he pulled Tony around on the stool, folding his arms around Tony's shoulders until Tony's ear pressed just under his heart, his own hands bunching against his thighs, "do you have any idea how badly you scared me?"

"You should be with Barnes at the hospital." Tony's voice was nearly non-existent.

"No, I should be with you in our bed." Steve replied softly. "I think I would've died if you weren't alright, Tony."

"He's back from the dead-"

"He's been brainwashed, and tortured, and even if Fury let me anywhere near him, I'm not sure he'd want to see me, since I'm the reason he...he fell. I don't need to worry about Bucky right now, because you're injured and because you scared me, and I need to be with you." Steve cut him off soundly, releasing him just enough to kneel on the workshop floor in front of the stool, looking up into Tony's eyes, "Do you hear me?"

"I hear the words, I understand their meaning, but I want to know what you're actually thinking, because that's not it." Tony told him, and Steve prepared himself for a fight, "You have nightmares, and I have nightmares-but when you have nightmares, you talk in your sleep, and his name is what you shout, over and over and over."

Steve looked at him, aghast. If he was shouting in his sleep, then they had another kettle of fish to fry, but he was going to jump off that bridge later, "Tony, do you know what my nightmares are?"

"Of course n-"

"In my nightmares, you're the one that falls out of my reach. When Bucky...fell... and after watching you free-fall out of that portal...for a long time, it was you that replaced him, your hand slipping out of mine because I wasn't fast enough to get to you in time. Bucky was my best friend...he was the only one who always believed in me, before," Steve cut off, gesturing to himself, and Tony's features crumpled, his mouth pinching, "and I'll always be thankful to him for that, but...it wouldn't matter to you if I were this, or that shrimp getting his ass kicked in every back alley in Brooklyn." Steve pointedly glanced behind Tony to the computer at his back, knowing that Tony's screen saver on that thing was a shot of the scrawny little loudmouth that still lived inside him.

"Pretty sure it never mattered to him, either." Tony said, voice too even, and Steve wished he'd thought to be the one to escort Tony back to their bedroom, but the medics kept talking about the shock and the side-effects of it, and Steve had been too polite to tell them to go to hell, Tony would take care of it, and he needed to take care of Tony.

"That's where you're wrong." Steve told him, "He hated this. He wanted the shrimp back. I think he'd been banking on coming back with a ducky war story and picking up where we left off, which was him trying desperately to find me a date, and me trying desperately to tell myself that I really wasn't more interested in the mechanic down the way who let me sketch the inside of an engine." Tony's eyes narrowed, and Steve bit back a grin, knowing that the fabrication of the mechanic had thoroughly been recognized as the ploy it was. "It was alright, 'cause I wanted the shrimp back a lot of the time, after..."

Steve swallowed, he didn't have have to explain to Tony what After was. Tony had started with him because of the after-effects of After.

Tony had watched him sparring and had told him that he needed to work on his agility; and then Tony had dragged him to a paintball tournament, handed him a gun, and said that the first one shot had to buy the other dinner. Tony had shot him in the ass, just to prove a point-which was not that dissimilar from Bucky and the training he'd made Steve do to get all of his new mass behind the shield. Tony had made it a regular date; sometimes with the team, but mostly without, shooting paint-filled pellets at each other and trash talking worse than an old married couple.

Tony had seen the longing in his eyes when the team went to a charity gala and Natasha and Thor had started dancing-surprisingly well, but that was mostly due to the fact that Natasha had no compunctions teaching someone by prodding them with knives. Tony-and Steve didn't know this at the time-knew full well that he'd missed a very important date while encased in the ice; but Peggy Carter had been Tony Stark's godmother, had taught him how to dance, and the next time Tony and Steve sparred, he'd taught him a new move, then another, and then Steve realized that it wasn't fighting he was being taught; it was dancing, and he was actually pretty good at it, if Pepper Potts was to be believed.

Tony hadn't been there for the short time in which Steve, so used to not thinking about checking his strength in the trenches and the storming of various HYDRA Bastilles, had accidentally ripped the door handle off of most of the doors he came into contact with if he wasn't paying close enough attention, but when he found out that Steve was uncomfortable touching something delicate now that he had the ability to accidentally crush it by overestimating the amount of force required, Tony gave him a job in testing out the force required to break things, until Steve knew what the weight of a cell phone was, until it was muscle memory that he didn't have to push as hard as he'd had to as that kid from Brooklyn in order to open a door. Then again, when Steve had been walking down the street, talking to Tony on a cell phone, and a giant, electrified, flying lizard had come bursting out of the sewer, Steve had punched it in the face with the hand holding the phone, and there was not a single mark on it (even though the one Tony had handed him to test out that morning had popped to pieces when he'd squeezed over a certain amount of pressure-so maybe Steve had figured out that it was for his benefit long before he let Tony peter off on the project).

"I know you miss it all the time..." Tony started, and when Steve took a breath to argue, he raised a hand that had bloodied knuckles from bracing the slowly breaking gauntlets down to take the weight of a collapsed building on his back and not crush the man he was trying to protect, "and if I could, I would give it to you. He's a part of who you are. I know that. You don't have to keep...putting on the brave face. He's here now-"

"Only brave face I put on is when you're too busy and I have to go to bed alone." Steve interrupted anyway, taking Tony's hand in his and rubbing his thumb over Tony's palm, "You didn't see me when I thought...You only saw me after you started moving. I was gone, Tony." Steve's hand moved from his up until both were cradling Tony's face, "You keep pointing me at Bucky, but you don't need to. I'll get there when I'm good and ready, and right now, I want you in our bed; I want to take a look at your back and rub some ointment on your hands and fall asleep with you pressed against me, with the reactor shining out because I thought...oh god, Tony, I thought I'd never see your light again." Steve knew he wasn't really cold as the shaking started, but Tony's hands, even as beat up as they were, pulling him in to be held against Tony's never-ending warmth was something he'd never been able to resist before, and didn't even think of trying to resist now.

"You're going to want to leave me, Rogers." Tony told him softly but firmly, and Steve flinched, "You're going to want to go back to him the second you realize that he loved you, too."

"Even if he did," Steve replied, "you keep it far more interesting. With Bucky, he'd want the white picket fence and the two-point-five kids and the dog-" Tony snorted at his attempt, and Steve let himself take Tony off the stool, sitting on the concrete with Tony and he wrapped around each other. "Tony, where is this coming from?"

"He's...he's James Buchanan Barnes. A hero."

"You're Tony fucking Stark," Tony choked on a laugh at the fact that Steve actually said that, "you're a superhero. And while Bucky's always been in my heart, we were never more than friends; more than brothers. He got me through a lot, I will be the first to admit that; but you've gotten me through a lot more." Steve took Tony's hand in his properly this time, and Tony held on like it'd kill them both to let go. "I'm not going to leave you: If there was ever a chance of that happening, I think it would probably have been during that thing with the radioactive ducklings at Easter. That was just _**bad**_."

"Hey, at least...25% of those jokes were Clint." Tony laughed, and it almost sounded like it usually would.

"Why Fury thought it was a good idea to stick the two most sarcastic men I have ever met on the same damn team is beyond me." Steve huffed, and Tony snorted again, rolling his eyes.

"Like you're not just as fucking bad."

Steve suppressed a grin, his eyes alight with laughter as he looked at Tony like he needed to remember every part of him. He struggled for a moment to pull it together, putting on a serious face and even letting the furrow between his brows make an appearance. "You know, maybe I really shouldn't let you ever talk to Bucky...ever."

Tony looked up, eyes vulnerable for a moment, then narrowed, calculating, "He has stories." Tony deduced, one eyebrow raising as he seemed to consider the options.

"You remember how we convinced the X-Men that I came with a swear jar, then they wanted to kill you when I cursed a blue streak during that thing with the giant-moth larvae eating Rochester? Bucky has stories better than that one." Steve dropped a kiss to Tony's hair, even though he knew it was dicey in the workshop and could have been streaked with motor oil.

Tony laughed, "You just managed to keep a hold of the cursing for three days; I'm pretty sure I'm the one that convinced them that they had to actually put into the swear jar."

"I actually carried that thing with me from room to room until they started automatically handing over the money. Logan alone could have bought me a new bike."

Tony shot him a look, "You know, if we hadn't started sleeping together before that, I might have fallen for it, too."

"I work better with a fall-guy." Steve told him sweetly, and Tony squawked with laughter, honest this time.

"Is that all I am to you?"

"My partner in crime? Mostly. But I would miss the sex if that's all we were." Tony laughed again, letting himself curl a little more into Steve. Closing his eyes, Steve rested his forehead against Tony's temple, sighing deeply, "You are the smartest man I've ever met, and yet you still don't seem to realize how much I love you. It's really, really infuriating, and I would like it to stop, please."

Tony kissed him softly, for the first time since he'd gotten out from under that collapsed high school, and Steve whimpered into his mouth without even an ounce of shame at the sound. Steve adored kissing Tony; would be perfectly content to kiss him for hours on end, it was that good. He ran his hands down Tony's arms, managing even while Tony sucked on his tongue to remember that Tony had been injured, and shouldn't-really, _couldn't_ -take the usual breadth of their making out. "Take me to bed, soldier?" Tony asked, voice just husky enough to make Steve want to fold like a sheet.

Steve nodded, carefully taking Tony's weight with an arm around the back of his neck instead of braced along his back, tipping him slightly as Steve got his legs under him and brought them both upright together. Tony nuzzled under his arm, pressing his cheek against Steve's chest as he reached to play with the ends of Steve's hair, "JARVIS, save all of it." Steve ordered as he pulled Tony gently towards the door.

Tony chuckled, "I didn't even get into any of it. Too busy imagining your tearful reunion." Steve could hear the fear in his voice still, and he swallowed against the urge to trap Tony between his body and the wall, "I...I don't know what I'll do when it-"

"Not 'when'. Not even 'if'. Bucky and I were never like what you and I are." Steve's voice was harsh, and he knew it, but he couldn't help the vehemence. He brushed Tony's face to look at him, and Steve ran his thumb over the soft of his temple with enough pressure to make Tony's dark lashes flutter in response to the mere hint of a massage. Reconsidering his stance on Tony's feelings of being physically carried around, Steve hissed in a breath, his body moving automatically to shelter Tony with his bulk, his eyes half-closing as he rested his forehead against Tony's. "I'd tell you to stop thinking, but you're injured, so I don't really think we should do what needs doing in order to get that to happen."

"How is it that you swear like a sailor on leave, but you still can't master dirty talk?"

"What can I say?" Steve asked, mock-serious now, a grandiose version of his Cap voice put on for Tony's entertainment, "I'm a man of _action_."

Tony was still laughing as Steve got him into their room, fingers going for the hem of Tony's t-shirt, calculating the risk of Tony not being pleased at a loss of the shirt versus the reward of not having to have his injured lover try to put his arms over his head. "Just do it." Tony told him, hand folding around his wrist, "I'll let it go this once, but the next time you tear one of my shirts off while we're making out, you have to put up with listening to the album it came from."

"Such a hardship..." Steve sighed, the sound of the tearing cotton almost lost in the words. Steve would be listening to said album while he sat in the workshop watching Tony work, and would undoubtedly enjoy every minute of listening to Tony argue with his bots over the frenetic drum beat of any of the music Tony favoured. He took another deep breath, and bit the proverbial bullet, even though neither of them would like it. "JARVIS? Lights, please. I need to look at Tony's back." The lights came up without JARVIS's reply, and Tony made a face at him, sitting on the bed then wrapping one arm around Steve's waist, laying his head against Steve's stomach, and Steve didn't have a great view of the bruises and the bandages medical had slapped on him, but the view Steve did have made him ache in sympathy. "We need to ice that." Steve told him, wincing as he slid his hand over Tony's hair, fingers burrowing through the short, dark hair to rub at his scalp. Tony let out a moan, shaking his head into Steve's stomach in denial.

"Don't you dare. I want you in this bed and I will take a scary Russian assassin ice bath tomorrow." Tony grumbled.

"I'm scared to even touch you, let alone let you lay down." Steve admitted. He squeezed his eyes shut, listening to Tony breathing, feeling his pulse against Steve's fingertips and his heat against Steve's body, "I don't know what I would have done, Tony. I really don't." Steve told him softly, and Tony loosened his hold enough to look up at him.

"You'd find another smartass to fall in love with." Tony tried, but the teasing fell flat.

"Couldn't risk it," Steve murmured in return, removing himself from the hug entirely to strip off his shirt and shuck his pants, "genius, billionaire, smartass, philanthropists are endangered, you know, and I've managed to find one already in my dangerous line of work: I won't be accused of actually causing a threat to the preservation of the species."

Tony stood with a groan, shirking his own pants and pressing a work-worn thumb to Steve's lips, his smile pulling the familiar lines out in his features. "Gorgeous men are the endangered species, Steve."

Steve smiled shyly through his blond lashes, and Tony rocked into him, kissing soundly as Steve cradled him against his chest as much as he could. When they broke, Tony curling an arm around Steve's back and laying his head down, Steve swallowed; but he didn't pull his punches, and he refused to back down when he needed to know, "Why did you save him, Tony?"

Tony's breath stuttered against Steve's skin, and he shut his eyes, hiding his face in Steve's neck. "I couldn't bear to have you lose another friend, Steve. As soon as I saw his face with the HYDRA minions, I knew who he was, and when the explosion hit, I'd engaged him, and if it weren't for the building collapsing, I would've been another Stark he'd killed, but I couldn't let another person you loved die."

Steve's fingers flinched against the back of his neck. He was careful as he pushed Tony into sitting on the bed again, sliding in behind where he sat and taking Tony into his arms as Tony carefully lowered himself into the bed, carefully kept distance between Tony's back and Steve's front feeling cold in the room. "You are someone I love, Tony, and you almost died, too. And don't misunderstand: I don't say that to be ungrateful. I say that because you have so much trouble grasping the concept that if you hadn't been able to last for as long as it took to get you, and we'd gotten to you too late, I doubt I'd take the loss. He was my best friend for most of my life. You were my best friend-and then you became the love of my life on top of that." Steve brushed his thumb over the protrusion of Tony's ribcage, pressing his lips to the most undamaged section of back he could get to. "How long did you know that my best friend from the '40s was the man that killed your family?"

"Only when I saw his face. It was his arm that gave him away as the person who killed them; I didn't know who was attached until I saw him."

Steve had only read the periphery of Howard and Maria's death. He knew that there had been suspicions of foul play, but hadn't read the reports of the eye-witnesses or the evidence gathered. But it wasn't Howard and Maria that Steve knew Tony mourned most: it was Edwin Jarvis.

"Who told you?" Tony asked, curious, "It was Rhodey, wasn't it? I knew he'd get back somehow for having to carry him out."

"Would you have told me?"

Tony's silence spoke volumes, and Steve pressed his mouth to that mostly-uninjured skin again, closing his eyes as he wished that he had the right words for this.

"If you'd met someone who'd hurt me-even if they were close to you-what would you feel?"

"Conflicted. And I don't want you to feel conflicted. Or guilty. So I wasn't going to tell you."

Steve paused, considering that, "And how do you think it'd've felt, me not knowing that while I was reconnecting with a friend, you were looking at the man that killed your family?"

Tony's fingers slid between his, and he seemed to get smaller in Steve's embrace, taking a deep breath. "I'd deal with it, Steve. I know something about being used as a weapon. If SHIELD is right, and he was brainwashed, that's all this is: he was used as a weapon, to kill...to kill my family."

Tony moved one of Steve's hands so that his palm fit over the arc reactor, blocking out its light, and Steve felt the need to pull Tony closer in his bones, but knew it'd hurt him. He knew what Tony meant; that Obadiah Stane had used Tony's brilliant goddamn mind to put turn the blood and bodies of soldiers into billions of dollars of revenue. The first time Steve had seen the arc reactor and the skin surrounding, he'd had to learn about it; Tony's flinch when his hands went near it violent enough that Steve knew he had to hear this, even if it gave him nightmares. Steve wished, often, that he could somehow go back in time, but unlike what Tony would assume it was, the wish was to save Tony from that damn bomb; or pull him out of the cave; or kill the man who'd played the father figure then tore Tony's heart out of his chest, and left him to die. Steve would've given anything to do that; to be there to stop it.

"I don't know...how I'll feel. But I'll try. That's all I can...all I can promise." Tony murmured, and Steve wanted to kiss him until the memories and numbers flying through his head stopped; so badly that he considered completely rearranging them with as little input from Tony as possible.

"How ever it is, I need you to tell me." Steve's voice was rough again, and he pulled the blanket higher, the light from the arc reactor a muted glow beneath the soft cotton.

In the relative darkness, Steve knew that he wasn't going to sleep, not like this. Not with the careful cushion of space between them, or the slightly laboured breathing that spoke of the cracked ribs Tony had suffered in trying to save Steve more pain. He knew a little something about laboured breathing and the feeling of diminished lung capacity, though his hadn't been caused by a piece of art that kept his heart beating. And Steve knew that Tony wouldn't sleep well, either-kept awake by the memories or drifting, too cold to quite drift off when Steve was warm beside him, but just out of reach without the flash of pain that any pressure on his back would no doubt cause.

Tony let out a long sigh after a few minutes, rolling slightly into Steve as if giving up to the pain if it meant the comfort of being in Steve's arms; and Steve immediately realized what they could do about this. "I think I might have a solution." He murmured into the silence, and Tony laughed, not for a moment wondering what predicament Steve was talking about.

"Thank god." Laughing back at the honest relief Tony injected into those two words, Steve carefully disengaged, pushing onto his back and pulling Tony into the empty space he left behind. Seeming to get the gist, Tony managed to raise himself up until he was half-sitting, gingerly turning his weight until he would've been facing Steve, then tangling their legs together, laying himself down like a blanket over the super soldier.

"This could work." Steve mumbled, pushing his fingers through Tony's hair again and smiling as the man purred like a cat.

"You're a tactical genius and this works perfectly." Tony scoffed, wrapping Steve's free hand with his own.

Steve traced the paths of scars covering Tony's hand, ghosting touches over the new injuries as if his hands could heal, and Tony let out a tiny sigh as he relaxed, wrapped up as much as he could be and quite happily falling for the dirty trick that Steve had of playing with his hair. The comfortable sprawl of Tony's body over his was familiar from every movie night they spent together; and even though it hid the light of the arc reactor, Steve imagined he could feel it working with every beat of Tony's heart. Steve let the fatigue of the panic and the worry settle into his bones, Tony's weight against him counteracting the urge to stay awake; to protect. Steve was tempted to never get out of bed while they were lying like that, and the residual fear of losing Tony forever made it all the more difficult to remember why they both risked their lives with their hearts out there. Erskine's words, that Steve was a good man before being a good soldier or a great creation, echoed in his head, and Steve breathed Tony in, the scent of the metal and ozone and being safe reminding him that Tony fought to protect as many people as he could, his life be damned. Steve would just have to remember that he fought by Tony's side, and would protect who Tony had chosen to be, just as much as the life in his body.

As if he could hear the thoughts chasing themselves around in Steve's head, Tony kissed his chest, over his heart, "I love you, too, Steve." _Too much to say_.


	3. Chapter 3

Yawning, Steve shuffled towards the coffee maker; a cup for each of them, and Tony would maybe agree to taking it easy, and actually let Steve ice his back.

Contrary to popular belief, Steve was not in any way a morning person by choice. Before he started sleeping beside Tony, waking up after three, at most four hours each night, he'd been too bored to make himself go back to sleep, going for runs just in the hopes of actually tiring himself out. Once he got Tony sleeping every night, it started to be easier and easier for him to stay asleep for longer-and while part of that, he knew, was down to Tony knowing how to tire him out, part of it was because he finally, after all these years, felt like he was safe enough to have a restful sleep.

The fact that he was not actually a morning person was his only defence against the fact that he completely missed the sight of Phil Coulson sitting at their kitchen table, on his and Tony's apartment level, rather than where he would normally be seated, at the kitchen table in the communal kitchen that they all usually used for big meals, using their smaller personal kitchens only if they had to.

"Steve," Phil finally beckoned, and Steve jerked slightly, thankful that he had only just gotten the mugs down for the coffee, not yet poured it. Turning to Phil, Steve blinked a few times before the gears in his brain started working. The agent had a small smile gracing his mouth, his hands folded on the table in front of him, with a file folder at his elbow, waiting. "I'm sorry for dropping in, but I rather wanted to keep this information away from prying eyes." Phil gestured to the file, and Steve set down the mugs rather harder than he really should, but neither broke. "The assessment of James Barnes; incomplete, but that will take time that I would rather not wait out before getting you privy to what's going on."

Steve turned his back without comment, reaching for another mug without asking, and going by rote to prepare each of their coffees, "Give me a minute to tell Tony I'll be out here and convince him to stay resting." Steve requested, and Phil nodded without a comment or a flicker of an eyelash. Taking Tony's coffee, Steve felt the tension straightening his spine and making his gait the stride of the Captain rather than his walk. Gritting his teeth slightly, Steve edged the door open and slipped in, taking in the sight of Tony laying on his stomach on the bed, the light pouring in from a partially-opened blackout blind spilling across Tony's shoulders and down his back, the light so golden it seemed almost like a trick of the light that Tony's back was a mass of bruising, the bandaging for the places where Tony's suit had been impacted hard enough to drive it into his skin standing against the colour of the bruising enough to make Steve sick all over again.

Peeking out of one eye, Tony offered an exhausted smile, reaching for Steve before his brain supplied the information that only one mug of coffee was cradled in Steve's large hands. "What's going on?"

The muffled question brought a smile to Steve's lips, and he bent to kiss Tony's hair, "Phil's out there, with a file on Bucky. He wants to go over it with me." Light as a moth's wing, Steve brushed his fingers down Tony's back until he reached the sheets, pulling them up over him. "I need you to stay here, drink your coffee, and rest. I'll bring you a second cup and the file when we're through. I just don't want you putting pressure on your back."

Tony was unsettlingly quiet as he reached for Steve's hand, and Steve's features went stern until he caved, "You don't have to bring the file." Tony managed, sounding like he'd gotten lost. Pepper, once he'd managed to convince her that he would never purposefully hurt Tony again, had once told him that listening between the breaths was what you had to get a hang of with Tony. He hadn't realized he had needed that advice until now, though. Tony sounded lost because he was offering to let Steve do whatever he thought was right, without the pressure of having someone at his back; and even after years, Tony didn't realize that having someone at your back didn't just mean the pressure of answering to them, it also meant that if you stumbled, they would be close enough to catch you from the fall. By asking Tony to stay, maybe Tony thought that Steve didn't want him to be in the loop, and Steve felt like laughing until he cried at the the thought that he even _could_ keep anything from Tony Stark.

Steve clucked his tongue, kissing the corner of Tony's mouth this time, "Tony, I'm not leaving you out; I just...I need you to not be in any more pain right now."

Tony nodded as much as he could with half his face mashed into the pillows, "I'll be here."

Immediately suspicious at how easy that was, Steve kissed the back of Tony's neck, nosing behind his ear softly. "I'll make it fast."

Phil was waiting for him, Steve sliding into the chair opposite him, pulling the file folder towards himself and flipping it open as if his stomach wasn't dropping out with panic. The pictures of Bucky unconscious weren't as visceral as Steve had feared, but it hurt all the same, to see the sallow face of the man that he would have wanted standing for him at his wedding, or laughing at him trying to be a parent. "He's in relatively good health, considering. There's evidence of multiple cases of cryogenic freezing, and it looks as though we were correct in the assessment of brainwashing." Steve's hand had a minute tremor as he spread the report out, the x-rays making his brows jump in surprise, his anger flaring, "There is a chip implanted in the arm and his skull; we believe it's possible both have a small explosive; right now, he's in a heavily-reinforced area that will block any signals HYDRA may be trying to send, but we can't let him out until we eliminate those. The arm itself is...a problem we may want to speak to Tony about. Unknown tech, but for advanced as it is, it's far from perfect, explosive aside. I understand that Tony may not want to help..."

"Bucky was the cause of his family's deaths. I don't think it's unreasonable that he's reticent." Steve sighed, feeling like every one of his ninety years, really.

"What will happen, best-case scenario?" Phil asked, eyes assessing as always.

"Bucky will be helped, we can undo the brainwashing, and he becomes the man I knew; he and Tony would become...friends. And worst-case? Bucky can't beat the brainwashing. Tony can't stand to look at me for my want to believe in him, and they try to kill each other-absolute worst being that Bucky succeeds."

Phil raised his brows at that, "Would you think that likely? Tony Stark has his own past, Steve."

"That's what he said, but that doesn't change the fact that the blood Tony thinks is on his hands is on Stane's-"

"And the blood on Bucky's hands belongs to HYDRA, not Bucky." Phil cut in smoothly, and Steve nodded, subsiding. "Believe me when I tell you, I understand both sides of the conflict, Cap."

"I'll feel better when Tony gets it through his head that I'm not going anywhere." Steve groaned, and Phil's brows rose, his mouth tucking slightly in one corner, eyes almost pitying, "What?"

"He's never going to realize that, Steve: you have to know that." Phil told him, voice soft but not unkind, "He doesn't do well with permanence. The steadiest things in his life are the robots, and the only people who come close are, of course, the Colonel and Miss Potts. ...Has Tony ever talked about Edwin Jarvis to you, Steve?"

"No, though I know the rough shape of their relationship." Edwin Jarvis had been more a father to Tony than Howard had; Tony hadn't stopped loving the man, even these many years past. Steve had wondered about what Edwin Jarvis, by all accounts a straight-and-narrow character of moral fortitude and kindness, would think of Tony bringing him back, in whatever way he could, with JARVIS.

"SHIELD was run by Agent Margaret Carter in its infancy; as you know," Steve nodded, wondering where this was going, "what few know is that Agent Carter and Mr. Jarvis were dear friends; and that she kept a record of both Edwin and Ana Jarvis' deaths. They were killed at approximately the same time Howard and Maria were, but neither were with the Starks in the car when it was forced from the road."

Steve's gaze was sharp as flint, and Phil sat back, the illusion of an unfeeling agent broken as he regarded his childhood hero, "I need to hear this, Phil."

Nodding minutely, Phil sucked in a breath through his teeth, "Ana and Edwin Jarvis were a largely lovely and happy couple; and were it not for their influence, it's doubtful that Tony Stark would have survived his infancy. They were servants, and they knew their place, but Tony loved both of them as if they were his real parents, and it was a tactical move-"

"To get Tony alone." Steve realized, the words falling from numb lips. "To kill both his real parents, and the ones that he looked up to. To get him vulnerable, to get him pliable..."

Steve couldn't keep going, his blue eyes blind to everything in in front of him, "...To get him in a position in which he could easily be influenced the wrong ways." Phil finished, voice gentle. "SHIELD...Agent Carter, really, always believed that it was the work of Obadiah Stane. Following their deaths, Tony spiralled, of course, and it was all Agent Carter could do to pull him out of it, from what I've read of her accounts. She couldn't protect him, though. Not how he needed to be protected. She had SHIELD to run, and Tony needed someone at his back full-time to keep Stane's fingers out of his brain. And I don't tell you this for nothing, Steve..."

"No. I need to know what happened in order to know what to do next." Steve agreed, voice rough. "How did Ana and Edwin die?"

These people almost felt like friends; hearing how close Peggy had been to them, knowing that they were such an influence on Tony that someone went to the trouble of killing them. Steve felt the loss a little more keenly than he had before, and he wished fervently that this was not an old scar he was going to end up picking at when Tony and Bucky were introduced into the same microcosm. "Ana was...well, we believe she was playing catch with Dummy," and Steve locked down, his fists clenching until his nails threatened to pierce skin, "she was shot through the heart and died almost instantly. Edwin found his wife, and was then taken out as well. The cameras on Dummy were not good enough then to get any real details, and Dummy's processing power was still too lacking to keep the information anyway, so we don't know what went down, precisely, just that Agent Carter found them, and found Dummy trying to play catch with himself. Tony is not aware of this, I believe; this information was for Peggy's personal records, not anything SHEILD's ever dreamt of digitizing."

"And therefore carefully out of JARVIS and Tony's purview." Steve nodded to himself, "Would...Would I be able to read Peggy's accounts?"

Phil nodded immediately, "Of course-"

"And I'd like...if Tony could read them, too." Steve's voice was 100% Steve Rogers, shy and aware that he had no weight to throw around, but waiting for the chance to throw it around anyway.

"I'd like to request, in kind, that you read them, before he does. That you make sure that you want him to read them. Agent Carter was astoundingly brave and wildly competent, but the...Peggy you knew, and the Aunt Pegs Tony did may not be the same person."

Steve didn't even flicker an eyelash at that, knowing already that this needed to be done. "Before you go, Phil...why...Why did Peggy lie to Tony about their deaths? She told him that it was an accident..."

"Tony didn't come to the funerals. Any of them." Phil replied, straightening his jacket and sweeping the folder back into order, "The story I've always subscribed to was that Peggy Carter, the then-director of SHIELD, showed up at Tony's apartment in Boston, told him she would not watch him drink himself to death like this, and then challenged him to a drinking game the after-effects of which were bad enough that the bender he'd had was never actually repeated." Steve couldn't help his grin at that, knowing full well how hard-wearing Peggy's alcohol tolerance was, and being intimately familiar with Tony's. Steve was of the firm belief that that would have been one hell of a night. "Had Tony been younger, I believe Agent Carter would have taken him in," Phil added quietly, a sadness in his features that Steve agreed with: Tony ought to have been taken care of, and he was of the firm belief Peggy would have done that. "As for Barnes...we may want to...bend the rules, to get you in the same room together."

Steve nodded once, knowing that Phil was speaking around the issue; that Fury would not approve of Steve ending up in there, but Phil thought it for the best, and that was what counted. As far as Steve and the Avengers were concerned, it was Phil who made the call: every time. "I...was the reason he fell." Steve managed. "I doubt he'd want to see me, even if he was in his right mind."

"You were also the one to save him in the first place, Steve." Phil reminded quietly. "And you had Tony to use as a focal point, but Bucky doesn't have anyone but you to have his back."

Steve swallowed, nodding jerkily.

Phil cast a sympathetic look over Steve, gathering himself up with a respectful nod, "I've kept you long enough. Take care of him, Steve."

Steve smiled slightly, his hand catching Coulson's hand and shaking it respectfully, "Thank you, sir."

"You made me believe in heroes, Steve; the two of you help me believe in love."

Phil let himself out of the penthouse that Steve and Tony had taken to sharing; the level Tony had created for Steve turning more and more into a studio instead of an apartment; Steve's painting and Bruce's knitting and Thor's lightning-galvanized glass arranged for them, waiting.

They had gotten to the middle before they realized there had been a beginning, in retrospect: Clint had broken into Steve's apartment because Tony started noticing Steve's hands having a slight tremble when he poured himself a cup of coffee; because he supplied-hell, he _built_ the punching bags Steve tore to shreds when there was nothing to fight against but his head. Clint had helped Tony break into his apartment because while Tony could pick a lock quite well, JARVIS had been telling him about the nights Steve woke up in the ice, crying and shaking and gasping for breath like the water was rushing in and he'd stayed awake to feel the icy knives digging into his soul, holding him in stasis, and those stories of his nights had sent an answering tremour in Tony's fingers that couldn't be stopped. Clint had broken into Steve's apartment because Tony knew what it was like to drown.

The scars that littered Tony had been a constant cause of distraction for Steve, even before Tony had pulled him into the chest he'd had to crack open. Tony had...hell, he must've had hundreds; little ones littering his hands, lines barely visible skating over his chest along with the big ones, and an order of magnitude more that Steve had taken his time to discover. He wanted to hear the stories of all of them, but he knew that he wouldn't; Tony was not one to remember the story of every scar that littered him. That he was about to dive into the scars that weren't visible on his skin was something that made Steve feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop, because he ached with the need not to make another scar to go with the array.

Steve palmed the door open quietly, and found Tony sitting up on the bed, head on his knees as he watched news coverage of the fight that had caused the truly impressive bruising that faced Steve now. The cup of coffee was sitting, gone cold now, right where Steve had left it, and he felt his heart twist as he took in the lines of Tony's body that all added up to one thing: the broad-sidingly silly thought that Tony had failed. Steve didn't yet know him well enough to know what Tony had thought he had failed at just by looking at him, unguarded like this, but he knew that that was what those lines and planes of his body meant. Padding in-and realizing that he'd spent his summit with Coulson shirtless, barefoot, in a pair of Tony's sweatpants because Tony was a hedonist and had all the soft clothes of the two of them-Steve came to sit next to Tony on the bed, taking his hand as he watched the projection of the explosion, the high school Tony had taken to the back going down like a house of cards. Running his thumb over the soft skin between fingers, Steve sucked in a slow breath, watching as shots of the destruction flashed by.

"When? " Tony asked quietly, and Steve turned to meet his gaze, utterly perplexed, "When will Coulson get you in to see him?"

For one moment, Steve wondered if Tony had heard everything, but the look in Tony's eyes somehow told him differently, "I'm not...at least, not yet. But I might have to ask you to help me with something you're not going to like." Steve told him, going for steadfast instead of cautious, "He has two microchips; one in the arm, one in his brain. They think they may be explosives."

Tony's eyes widened slightly, and he nodded once, sucking in a breath, "I can help with that. But...where in his brain?" Tony made a face, and Steve leaned over to kiss his forehead, utterly fond of Tony and his aversion to the "squishy" sciences. He knew the theory perfectly, but used it only to help make bigger and better advances in the tech offered in the medical industry.

"Phil took the file with him, but I'm sure that once you're a little less black and blue, JARVIS will show you the entire file. It was long enough with it in the open for you to copy it, right, JARVIS?"

Tony snickered, and Steve grinned, " **Yes, sir.** " JARVIS replied.

Steve nudged a falling lock of dark hair off of Tony's forehead, rocking his head forward to rest their foreheads together, "Can I hold you right now, for a few hours? Here, or out in the living room, with a movie?"

Tony looked him up and down with nothing short of suspicion, "You haven't eaten yet. I know you haven't. You need to, or I'll be accused of malnourishing a national icon." Steve laughed, moving to kiss Tony's temple. "I am serious! That whole bit about not further endangering the smartass species? That, but here, now, with this."

"If I make pancakes, will you put some ice on your back?" Tony seemed to consider this for a moment, nodding finally and letting Steve take his hand as he stood, groaning as his muscles made their displeasure apparent. "Should I be getting you to a hospital?" Steve wondered, knowing full well that the answer would forever and always be no.

Steve had watched Dummy and You help Tony reset a dislocated shoulder, before Tony was aware he had been standing there and would have liked to throttle him for the mistreatment of his own damn bones; he'd seen Tony use a suit jacket that cost more than a car in the forties as a compress to stop the bleeding while he kept arguing with Fury about misappropriation of his tech. He'd only stopped arguing with Fury when he'd suffered enough blood loss that he began swaying, and Steve had had to be called from his meeting with Hill to placate Tony as he hissed at the medics like a sodden cat. There was no end of the stress it caused when Tony got injured, because it never seemed to slow him down; he only fought harder.

Natasha and he had sat down not long after that, because it had caused Steve and Tony had their biggest fight since the Helicarrier; pausing in the middle to find Tony locked in his lab and not even letting Pepper in, and him haunting the halls or pounding his knuckles to a bloody pulp against the heavy bags. She'd sat him down and put a cup of tea in his hand and very calmly told Steve about the first time she met Tony Stark. Steve knew, in the abstract, what had happened; that Tony had been dying, and had given Pepper his company because he had no more time; had let Rhodey take the suit because he needed someone to step into Iron Man's shoes when he was gone, and had told neither of them what was going on. What took Steve by surprise was that the coming death of Tony Stark hadn't been met with nearly as much resistance as Steve had thought it would be, not from Tony. Tony had put JARVIS on finding another core element, Natasha had told him, but hadn't really bothered to put his mind to it himself. Tony had been through all kinds of hell, and he'd decided that he wasn't up for fighting for his own life; hadn't really fought for his own life from the word "go". First it had been Yinsen, and Tony had failed to save him. Then it had been every village taken prisoner by the Ten Rings. During the palladium poisoning, Tony had no one to protect, no tangible reason to keep fighting, so for a while he all but gave up, and that was when Natasha had met him. When he was hanging by a thread; when he was putting his affairs in order instead of digging in like they all knew he would if it was anyone else on the line. Tony was a lot of things, and lord knew that not all of them were good, but never any so bad as what Tony thought of himself. Steve had learned to threaten and cajole Tony into taking care of himself, because he couldn't do it while Tony was paying attention; only on the sly.

But because Tony loved to take care of people; loved to quietly and steadfastly work on a problem until it melted to nothing, Steve had an ace in the hole; if Tony didn't take care of himself, how on earth could he take care of Steve?

Letting the strain of his worry show on his features, Steve met Tony's dark eyes, and played his card to perfection, because while an actual hospital was a long shot, Tony's mouth pulled down, his breath catching slightly as he reached up to Steve, and Steve knew that he'd at least bought himself Tony going to get checked out by Bruce, which was better than the grin-and-bear it that Tony would have been doing between bouts of whining that he would be benched for the near future.

Tony's thumb, warm and work-rough, on the very corner of his mouth, felt like it was necessary for Steve to keep breathing, just then; the stress of it nearly losing him and the relief of his touch mixing until Steve was ready to fall into his throat and refuse to come back out. "Let's get you fed, and then we'll see if I can't con Bruce into giving me some pain meds." Steve easily complied as Tony uncurled his fingers around the back of his neck, urging him into a slow, devastatingly intimate kiss that had Steve's hands curled in the bedsheets because he wanted so badly to grab Tony in his arms so the kiss wouldn't end.

"I'm pretty sure he'd just give 'em to you." Steve managed, voice husky in a way that had Tony shuddering into his chest, and lips burning from the kiss. Tony chuckled, kissing his cheek gently, and Steve opened his eyes as Tony leaned back, his hands curled in his lap and a look of sadness in his eyes that made Steve wish Tony wouldn't notice him grinding his teeth.

Pasting on a smile, Tony stroked his thumb over the pulse in Steve's throat, his features going soft as if it was a conscious effort to get them to do so, "Takes the fun out of it."

Wondering what he could do that wouldn't hurt Tony further; how he could pin Tony down and chase the thoughts out of his head without running the risk of causing him any more pain, Steve helped Tony up from the bed, pulling him into his chest and resting his hands on Tony's hips, his lips pressing just over Tony's ear. "I hate to take your fun away," Steve murmured, "but that does seem to happen...really more than I'd like."

Tony laughed into his sternum, wrapping his arms around Steve's waist and settling there like the warmth Steve was giving off was his second home, "You make up for the fun you take away, Steve, and the taking of the fun was for my own safety, anyway."

Steve huffed, rolling his eyes, "I don't know how you can consider nearly setting yourself on fire- _twice_ -to be fun."

"I like things that explode, Steve. This is a thing you need to understand. And Barton and I are in agreement; the bigger the bang, the more satisfying the work to get there." Steve laughed, kissing Tony's mess of hair and taking his hand, leading him out into the chill air of the apartment and depositing him on the couch.

Every level of the tower had a kitchen and an entertainment room, and a couple rooms to spare for whatever Avenger it housed, with the group kitchen and a main romper room built into the centre of the building; each of them having access through a connecting door, and a slightly sloping walk; their own areas built around it. Normally, Steve would be out there in the breakfast rush; making Bruce's eggs because Bruce was always just a little sleep-stupid in the mornings and usually burned his own; helping Natasha make herself and, if Natasha managed to get him before coffee, Clint fruit salad that Steve was fairly certain Coulson bribed her to get him to eat to avoid gout; and putting Thor's Pop-Tarts through the toaster because Thor had a tendency of having increased output of the electricity that usually heightened around him like a constant static build-up. They'd lost the first three toasters because Norse-god electricity didn't seem to want to bend to the same rules as the normal stuff, and no matter how Tony tried to insulate it, they ended up with a slightly singed counter and the smell of burnt metal in the air for a few days if Steve didn't run interference. But once breakfast was done? Then Steve would get to make himself and Tony each their coffees, finding Tony usually already buried in his notes. He'd usually take a couple of muffins; nothing too heavy or time-consuming, and would get Tony to eat mainly by trickery; asking him to try the crumb, or sometimes just breaking bits off of the muffin and feeding it to him when he orbited back into range, stealing kisses in between.

They wouldn't be joining anything with anyone for as long as Steve could manage to hold back the world, if he had any say in the matter. He wanted to keep Tony to himself for as long as he could beg, borrow, and steal the time; hadn't let himself do that in all the time they'd been together, but ached to do it now. Therefore, he herded Tony into a seat over in their private entertainment area just across from the kitchen, willing and able to make Tony as much food as he could get away with. Tony winced as he settled back into the cushions and Steve realized he had just the answer; the gel pack that Tony had made for the nights he still pounded his memories through the heavy bag lying in the bottom of their freezer. Steve zipped back into their room, grabbing Tony's cold coffee as he grabbed Tony one of Steve's shirts and one of his hoodies, knowing that the reason Tony didn't want to ice was in part because he didn't like the cold, either.

For as much as Iron Man had been forged from Tony Stark in the middle of the desert, Steve knew that it'd likely been cold, and wet, and in the dark, alone, all Tony had to hold onto was that he was Tony Stark, and had a man to cut the wire for. Carrying his collection to Tony on the couch and kneeling before it, Steve took in the small signs that Tony was in pain; the pinch at the corner of his mouth, and the drawn look to his eyes. The button-up shirt and zip hoodie was easily put on, and Tony stayed somewhat upright as Steve retrieved the gel pack, laying it out over as much of Tony's back as he could.

"Talk to me, Cap." Tony beckoned, trying to hide the groan as he reclined onto the cold.

"The painting I've been working is...frustratingly elusive. I'm so used to the little sketches, it's taking longer than I thought to pick up a brush again; and every time I do, I seem to just get frustrated and end up starting over again." Steve admitted, voice tight. "I might be able to paint you a wall in one, solid colour; more than that seems beyond me at the moment. which is not really something to complain about, but...the art was all I was good at before."

Tony was regarding him with dark eyes as he poured another cup of coffee, "I'm not sure you know this or not, what with Pepper trying to covertly show you my baby photos because she feels the need to be my only remaining family...but I used to play piano. Used to sing, too, before I built my first engine and M-Mother got the last of her chance to raise her little boy how she wanted him raised."

Steve knew that the stumble over what to call his mother was a drop in the bucket compared to Tony's feelings about his father, but Steve couldn't help but offer Tony the affection he hadn't gotten enough of as a child; brushing back Tony's hair and using his thumb to smooth the lines between Tony's brows as he handed the man his fresh cup, pressing a kiss to his forehead, "I want to hear you sing sometime." Steve murmured, "Would you sing for me?"

"I'm not sure I still can. I could then, sure, but I think I'd need _practice_..." Rolling his eyes at Tony's smirk, Steve leaned down to kiss him properly, slow and teasing so that Tony would chase his lips when he moved away.


	4. Chapter 4

The figure of Bucky Barnes was unconscious and pale against paler bedsheets; the bruise-like shadows under his eyes telling Steve more than he wanted to know at that point; the features achingly familiar even for how different he was. Natasha slipped into the space beside Steve, taking his hand briefly and squeezing once before releasing his hand again. "This is as far as I can force myself to go." Steve admitted quietly, and Natasha slid to stand in front of him, her eyes steady and her mouth set, "He's not even conscious and I'm scared of facing him." Natasha pursed her lips slightly, her arms folding over her chest.

"Then what are you doing here, Rogers?" She asked quietly, and knowing her, the sense she gave of already knowing the answer was dead-on.

"I'm here..." Steve started, then paused to think about it, "I'm here because he was my best friend."

Natasha cocked a brow, her lips twitching slightly in amusement, "I heard it was because Bruce kicked you out of the lab because Tony was directing Bruce on how to fix his own mass spectrometer, and you were hovering." She punctuated that statement by poking a sharp-nailed finger into his chest, and Steve couldn't help the small smile that brought.

"Guilty as charged. And I have some reading to do, so it's for the best, but I...I was hoping I might dig out what's left of that kid from Brooklyn who wouldn't back down from a fight and get the courage to actually be in a room with him...even if he wouldn't know I was there."

Natasha's eyebrows soared, and Steve regarded her evenly, her grip on his arm stronger than usual, "That kid from Brooklyn doesn't need digging out, Steve; he's standing right here. He's just not good at dealing with guilt. Yours, or anyone else's."

Steve ducked his head, looking in on the man lying there again, because he couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. "You know, I've written him hundreds of letters in my head. Told him about all of this...told him about Tony. I'd have conversations with him when I needed someone to talk to, so he woulda been the first one to know everything...I stopped talking to him, though. When I had Tony to talk to. I talk to JARVIS anytime I need to talk about him to someone, too, so Bucky...the Bucky in my head...hasn't heard from me in a while."

"I'm fairly certain he wouldn't mind." Natasha told him, "You adapted to your life-to this life. He wouldn't begrudge you that."

"No, but I begrudge it. Just a little. If I don't miss them, who will?"

Natasha leaned against the side of the observation window, arms folded and head tipped as though listening to something he couldn't yet hear. "Pepper's...expanded your understanding of Howard Stark, yes?" Steve scowled before he could stop it, nodding. "He missed them, too; to the point of driving him away from all the world happening around him. Not to tell you what to do, but if you ever lose yourself in missing them, I'll be so severely disappointed not even Clint will win me back."

They both knew it wasn't simply missing the men he'd served with that had driven Howard into the bottle so deeply that his i _son_ /i had had to struggle his way out, but Steve was also smart enough to know that it wasn't a small part. "So what would you have me do?"

Natasha shrugged one shoulder, demur. "If it were up to me, your life would be far different, Steve, and it wouldn't include a common-law marriage to Tony Stark as one of the line items. My vote doesn't count. But why don't you try reconnecting with that old friend you lost touch with? If he got you here, he's got to have some good material."

Patting him on the bicep, Natasha slipped around him, her steps heavy enough, for his benefit, for him to listen to her go. Turning his gaze back to the man on the bed, Steve sighed, curling forward to rest his weight on the ledge of the window and squeezing his eyes closed. "I'm sorry."

The sound of Bucky's laugh was something Steve had been scared he'd forget until the serum made his memory eidetic, and the memory of it floated up to the surface. _"Whatever, punk. Now, sleeping beauty in there: that's going to be interesting."_

Steve looked up at the pale imitation in the bed, sending a wave of thanks to Natasha as he did, because this was something he could do, but it wasn't something he could do with his memories pushed under a rock to help him cope. Steve sighed, forcing his tension to roll out of his muscles, and went to find the meeting room Phil had set up for him with Peggy's journals. There were more than Steve had thought probable, but sitting down to the first, he knew why; Peggy had written it all down, almost clinically, in order to get a feel for what was right versus what was easy. That Peggy had had a fiancé before the war, and it had sparked her move to General Phillips' battalion was, in part, news. Somehow, even knowing she'd laugh at him for it, Steve had always pictured Peggy sharp-shooting and taking no prisoners and no shit in equal measure; that she hadn't ever been a dame made to conform to what was expected, even for as improbable that conformation was.

By the time Peggy was telling him about the first time Howard introduced her to Anthony Edward Stark, Steve had been there for hours, heart aching as he devoured the words about her mourning him as much as she'd allowed herself to do so; then her tenure as an agent and meeting the Jarvises and falling in love with her husband. Laughing at her description of a baby Tony trying to take apart her early SHEILD communicator, Steve startled as a pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders, blinking into the inadequate light now augmented by the arc reactor.

"Ditching me for your ex, Steve? Really?" Tony chuckled, bending slightly to press a kiss to Steve's cheek, "I've been bade to get you out of here so that you eat something. How is it that you're turning into me, by the way? There should really be only one self-destructively workaholic person in this relationship."

Steve chuckled, swiping a hand at his eyes as he pushed back from the table that, indeed, held an untouched cup of coffee long gone cold and a plate of hot pockets similarly mistreated. "I just...got lost in the words."

Tony smiled indulgently at him, bending again to kiss his lips this time, "So, take out and bed, or are you up for a real dinner?"

Steve turned and wrapped his arms around Tony's hips, sighing as he tipped forwards to hide his face just under the arc reactor. "I've barely seen the team today."

"Well, Bruce says he's sorry for kicking you out; Nat told me she had told you to get your head on right or she'd hurt me; Clint is in the air vent watching you reminisce here, because he knows how much Coulson loves these journals; and Thor is the one that brought you the coffee and hot pockets which are apparently a suitable substitute for Pop-Tarts when it isn't breakfast, but lunch-don't ask, he explained it and I just went into hibernation mode in order to stay sane...ish-as sane as I ever am?"

"Fuck you, Stark!" The air vent vented, "How is it you always know when I'm up here?"

"I had a pet tracker surgically implanted at Coulson's behest." Steve was laughing quietly into his chest, hands gripping his hips with a desperation he didn't want to be feeling with Tony's warm, worn hands rubbing at his shoulders, his clever fingers moving up Steve's neck to card in his hair. Steve breathed in the scent of oil and overheated metal and sandalwood, closing his eyes against the thoughts running through his head of all the things he would have seen if he hadn't crashed, versus all the things he had gotten to see because of it. "Move your ass, Barton; I've got Cap watch from here. Or would you like to risk he'll finally give in and have sex with me here, even with you to see it?"

Steve snorted almost inaudibly, pressing his face into Tony's middle because despite Tony's insinuation, Tony's touch didn't even hint that he wanted to have sex; Tony's touch was all about comfort now.

Steve listened as Clint hightailed it out of the vent with more care to make noise than he would ever use to exfiltrate anywhere else: and when the sounds faded, Tony bent slightly, whispering to him, "You okay, Steve?"

"Yeah..." Steve croaked, then rethought his answer, "will be. Can we go home now?"

Tony's palm pressed into the knot of tension under his shoulder with just enough force to make him groan, and Tony's other hand pulled gently through his hair, "Anything you need, Steve. Anything you want, I'll give you everything I can. You know that."

Steve shivered into his embrace, and Tony let himself be moved as Steve put him on the table, Tony clearing back room in the books with a graceful sweep of his arm. Tony put his feet on either side of Steve's thighs on the seat, keeping him pressed against his chest as Steve wrapped himself up in Tony as much as he was allowed. "How did you know these were Peggy's?"

Tony huffed a laugh, and leaned back in the embrace, reaching for one, "I gave her this one for Christmas...the last real Christmas I had."

Steve flinched slightly, and Tony hushed him, gently drawing his face out from hiding and brushing his hands over Steve's cheeks before brushing his lips over Steve's as light as a moth's wing. Steve groaned in denial, catching Tony before he could pull away and drawing him into something slow and deep, his hands wrapped around Tony's wrists, "Tell me?"

Tony sighed gustily, pressing his lips to the corner of Steve's, then his cheek, his temple, his forehead. "I was...I must've been five..." He began, wrapping their fingers together as Steve sucked in a breath as if already in pain, "back home from boarding school, and Aunt Peggy was going to stay with us for Christmas; she was going to get the Howling Commandos to stop by, too, that year, and it'd be just like my third birthday party: they'd run interference, and tell me stories...stories about you." Tony stroked his thumb from behind Steve's ear, down the line of his neck to his collarbone, "Howard had all these collectibles...and I wasn't allowed to go near them, so, of course, that was all I wanted. But I was being good, because I had a very special request that year, and if I was good, then I'd get what I asked for." Steve and he had talked about Tony's past this way; Tony telling him the stories that had been passed on to him. In a way, it was an explanation for that horrible day on the Helicarrier, because while Tony was Steve's link to his past, Steve was a link to Tony's, too. "I wanted to meet Captain America." He murmured, voice almost laughing, but not quite, "Just once. Just to thank him for saving the world, and for saving Aunt Peggy and Dum Dum and Jim...all of them. Even Jarvis and Ana." Steve sat back to look up at him but Tony didn't let himself pause, "I didn't tell anyone that that was what I wanted, but when I didn't get it, I refused to play with the toys I did get; I wouldn't even entertain the idea of being thankful, because I'd only wanted the one thing, and even though I was good, I didn't get it. So why be good?" Tony paused then and immediately regretted it, swallowing past a lump in his throat, "Aunt Pegs saw right through it. She probably used the same look on you that she did on me: like she could see every thought and every reaction in your head, and she didn't give a damn about any of it, you were going to sit and do what she wanted you to, or you were going to be in serious trouble." Steve laughed at that, but he felt more like sobbing, if only for the thought of that little boy that Tony was describing. "She cornered me after breakfast; told me that she had no idea and didn't need to know what I'd asked for, but she fully expected that I should, sooner or later, get it. Of course, as always with the women who have that look and live in the orbit of my life, she was right, but she also had a present she'd smuggled in for me. Something that she didn't want Howard to know that she'd given, so I had to be careful."

"What was it?" Steve asked after a moment. He was almost scared to hear the answer, though a part of him hoped he knew what it was already.

"A plushie of you, actually. I got to have my very own Captain America after all, and I learned that day that Christmas wasn't real, but Peggy and the people as strong and brave and fierce as she was were, and were so much better for me."

Steve felt his ears heat, pulling Tony along the table by the hips, but resisting the urge to pull him into his lap. He breathed deeply, and the kid from Brooklyn would have marvelled at being able to do even something as simple as that, most days. "Why me?"

"Because she loved you, and if for nothing more than that: if your men, decades later, hadn't still talked about you like they were kind of in awe; if Howard hadn't been going searching for you every chance he could get away from us...if for nothing more than the fact that you earned the respect and admiration of Peggy Carter, I would have thought you had hung the moon."

Steve's grip on the fabric of Tony's trousers was tight enough that he had to remind himself that he needed to let go because SHIELD was no place for a rip in the pants, and he looked up at Tony, very close to tears. "I wish I could have been there." _To save you from losing faith so young. To give you someone to turn to even when Peggy couldn't be there. To listen and learn from you, even while you were still learning yourself_ went unsaid.

"I hate the idea of you in that ice, Rogers, so I wish it, too, but I don't think we would have ended up here if you had been there." Tony murmured slowly. He pressed dry, slightly chapped lips to Steve's hair, and Steve let his eyes close, not trying to make himself decide which would be better for Tony, because this was all he could give him, and he refused to regret it. "And anyway, I was a brat; you would have rolled your eyes so hard you probably would've knocked something loose."

"Like I haven't done that now?" Steve teased, and Tony laughed, swatting at his shoulder as he used the wheelie chair Steve sat in to his advantage and pushed Steve back from the table and the hug. Steve let it happen, looking up at Tony with pain in his features plainly, because Tony already knew it was there, and accepted one more kiss before Tony took his hand to lead him out of the conference room, locking it up behind them so that Steve could return to the books later. Steve gestured to the door once they were walking away from it, "This feels like a massive invasion of her privacy." He admitted, and Tony actually guffawed.

"Steve, Peggy was the smartest woman I have ever met. If she hadn't wanted her journals read, then she either would not have written them, or had them destroyed, not bequeathed to SHIELD." Tony reminded, and Steve loved how well he understood the strength of the woman, "She probably would have gotten a kick out of the idea that you'd be reading through everything like this, really. She certainly gets a kick out of you trying to catch up now."

Steve visited Peggy often; and, if he was being honest, the first time after the Helicarrier that Steve had really taken a look at Tony Stark as more than the flash persona and more than the suit, it had been when he'd accidentally arrived in the middle of Tony's own visit. Peggy had grinned at them both, said something to the effect of "my two favourite boys in one room at last" and Tony had snorted, rolled his eyes, and told her she needed to get her priorities straight if he was on the same level as Steve. Then he'd launched back into the story of playing pick-up monkeys with the crew of Air Force One while he'd been in Malibu over Christmas, and Steve had just kind of folded into the other chair, startled to be hearing this, because he hadn't seen it on the news, and Tony hardly shared anything with him. It was at the part of the story when the suit had gotten smashed to bits that Peggy had reached for Tony's hand, her dark eyes much like his as she stared through all his walls, seeing exactly where to hurt if she needed to, and exactly how to build him up should she choose that route. She'd told him about her own trials with the nightmares, and Tony seemed to deflate at that; his eyes going darker as he stared down at this woman they both loved. Steve had learned, sitting beside Peggy's sickbed, that Tony wasn't all sharp lines and mouthy intellect; that he'd suffered more than he'd ever allow anyone to know. When Peggy was falling asleep to Tony telling her about destroying the Iron Man armours for fireworks, Steve resolved to reach out to Tony more; to find a way to make this world work for him, even if he had to start with the piece of the world that reminded him most of the one he'd left behind. A week later, Rhodey was standing in Steve's tiny, SHIELD-appointed apartment in full Air Force uniform, staring him down against ever hurting Tony again. Steve liked to imagine, after he'd learned about the shape of Peggy Carter and Tony Stark, that Peggy would have been standing right there with Rhodes; tall and proud and taking absolutely no nonsense, or she'd shoot at him again, this time with more likeliness to hit.

Tony had seemed perplexed the first time Steve made inroads to being civil; then he'd been amused. Tony had been repairing the damage to Stark Tower with help only from Rhodey and the War Machine suit for the heavy lifting that he needed to be free of the suit to attach back into place. When Steve had managed to get past Pepper's orders to JARVIS and Rhodes' constant presence, into the level that was to be Clint's-smaller than the actual penthouse, but the highest level, and with roof access-he'd found Tony's legs hanging out from under a raised section of the bathroom floor, swearing a blue streak and telling JARVIS that he needed to come up with something more efficient for in-floor heating. JARVIS replied he could perhaps come out from under the floor, as he had a guest, and Tony had called one of them, Steve wasn't sure which one, something in Italian that was best not said in front of small children. Tony had flailed slightly, then finally managed to extricate himself, sitting up and blinking owlishly as he turned the headlamp off.

At first, Steve had assumed it was boredom or pride that kept Tony from calling in professionals. But when the Avengers had started to move in, Tony would still disappear for hours at a time, and Natasha had had to follow him to find out that, in point of fact, Tony was helping to repair a high school that had had a hole blasted though it, and then got swept up into helping the house next door repair their blasted-off roof. He worked in as many places as would let him, as unskilled labour for most of it. The city had been in ruins, and even the great Tony Stark stood up to rebuild it. The first time the Steve followed him to one of the projects he was working on, Tony hadn't batted an eyelash, shoulders-deep in wiring and gesturing with a jerk of his chin, because he'd had a wrench clenched in his teeth, for the wire cutters sitting at Steve's feet, just out of arm's reach even if he didn't have both hands buried in what seemed to have been an emergency generator. To Steve, and mostly everyone else who looked at it, it was a burnt-out husk of a machine that had been beyond usefulness ten years before. Tony, with the same teeth-clenching stubbornness, had taken the damn thing and brought it back to life.

Brought it back to life in a way that Steve wished he could be brought back to life, too.

And then, ultimately-because it had taken him the better part of a year-Tony had learned or built the tools necessary to do exactly that, and put them all to stunning use.


	5. Chapter 5

The heat from the shower worked wonders on the tension riding Steve's shoulders, even as it sluiced off the blood of yet another attack, this one from AIM. He felt tired to the point of being dizzy, but he didn't think it would have much to do with the ray AIM had been trying to set up, even if it had taken him longer to get back up after he'd been hit than it usually did. Tony was in their bedroom, angry to the point of stillness because he was benched, and had had to watch as Steve was thrown through a building, the plate glass of the sky scraper raining down on him in deadly sheets. For the most part, the scale-mail that Tony had designed to withstand bullets had held up magnificently, but splinters of glass had managed to get under the fabric, and even though the tiny slices they left in his skin had healed almost as soon as they were created, the sight of the blood on his skin had made Tony stop dead. Steve hadn't liked that look in his eyes; liked it less on Tony than he liked it on his own features, in point of fact. Ton had looked _lost_ , like losing Steve would set him utterly adrift, and it'd been too close this time for Tony to compartmentalize it quite how he was used to.

Steve growled to himself, rolling his head back in the water, "JARVIS, tell Tony to get in here."

JARVIS didn't verbally respond, but Tony pushed into the bathroom a moment later, his eyes haunted, "You summoned?"

"Get in here." Steve ordered, voice brooking no argument just to see if Tony would find the push to argue with him; if he was compartmentalizing it now. Tony started stripping, and Steve bit the inside of his cheek, closing his eyes against the spray and retreating under it like it'd help with the coming storm.

Tony's skin was cool when Steve pulled him into his arms, and he buried his face in the hollow of Tony's throat instinctively, pressing his eyes closed against the skin, feeling large and clumsy again as he brushed his hands over Tony's back with as little pressure as he could. Tony folded into him, and Steve felt a rush of gratitude that for all that it'd taken to get him there, he'd managed to make it.

"How are you?" Steve finally asked, giving in to the louder majority of him that did not want to remove his face from Tony's neck to glance down the man's back.

Tony huffed, his hands curling on Steve's shoulders, "I'm fine. You come in with your-"

"I've healed near-mortal wounds in a day, Tony; this was nothing." Steve soothed, "I ask because I'd love to back you up against that wall and kiss you until the in-demand heating finally gives out."

Tony laughed softly, pulling his face up to kiss him slowly and deeply, running the backs of his fingers down the long column of his neck. "The building has its own arc reactor power supply, Steve; that would take a while."

"I would accept that challenge." Tony laughed into his mouth as Steve crowded him against that wall, his large hand under Tony's jaw, licking slowly into his mouth. Steve nudged his knee between Tony's thighs, running his thumb over Tony's nipple to make him arch into Steve's solid heat. Steve whimpered as Tony sucked on his tongue, covering Tony's body with his bulk and biting back the need to pull Tony's body into his and keep him there. Steve hummed as Tony wrapped his arms around Steve's shoulders, grinding into his thigh with a moan that seemed to be dragged out of him. Tony's hands ran slowly over his shoulders, down his arms to circle where most of the damage had been done; sensitive fingertips relaying the smoothness of his skin and the tiny difference in body heat that meant a recently healed wound. Tony released his arms to wrap around his shoulders again, riding up on Steve's thigh while he let the kiss turn so hungry and possessive that it made Steve weak.

Even with Tony's careful retraining of his head, Steve kept a part of himself in check; his strength was too much of a risk to let himself go completely, especially when it came to Tony's very breakable billionaire body. He'd wondered, the first few times they'd gotten together, if Tony would be worried about his strength as much as he was-right up until Tony had pinned him to the workshop wall in the Iron Man suit after a battle; the gauntlets stroking his hair and down his cheek more than strong enough to crush his skull as Tony had fucked his tongue in Steve's mouth slow enough to make Steve's toes curl. Slow enough to make Steve beg. Steve had no fear in him when Tony did that; had no other thoughts beyond getting him to feel just as lost as Steve was-and then he realized that the constant, slight distraction of his strength would probably be driving Tony, who knew him better than anyone, a little crazy. Not having Steve's full attention when they were like this was probably something Tony loathed, and Steve was at a loss for how to fix it until Tony made him realize that he had to trust him to tell Steve when his touch was too much, because Tony trusted him to do the same thing, though for different reasons.

Having the refractory period of a super soldier meant that Tony got a dark gleam in his eye, taking Steve apart again and again and again until Steve thought he was going to pass out if he came one more time, and Tony loved to see just how far he could push Steve until he was shaking and incoherent with his careful control more punch-drunk than that skinny kid from Brooklyn in a back alley. Tony claimed it was because he never got to see Steve actually exhausted unless they had been battling some major evil; Steve knew full well that it wasn't the exhaustion Tony liked seeing-it was the sluggish stupidity that brought a dopey grin to his mouth and a possessiveness to his hands as he'd pull Tony into the cradle of his body afterwards. Tony liked it when Steve was just a little bit possessive with him; when he took advantage of being stronger to trap Tony against the bed so they could sleep, and Steve loved that Tony let him. Tony, who could disappear better than Houdini if he wanted to, would let him drag the workaholic away from his work and his bots and his brilliance and into their bed, and would not let him out until he knew Tony had gotten enough rest.

"Your shoulders are ridiculous." Tony muttered indistinctly, sounding dazed from just a few minutes of kissing. "Your everything is ridiculous, but your shoulders particularly are just..." Tony pulled him back into a kiss, and Steve couldn't help the grin he pressed into it, "you're damn _unfair_ , Steven."

Steve laughed at that one in breathy whispers, catching Tony's sounds as he reached to wrap his hand around them both. "My shoulders are unfair, Tony? Do you have any idea what you do to me, just watching you move? It's like you're dancing, every damn move you make."

Chuckling, Tony bit at the tendons in Steve's neck, worrying the skin with his tongue as the mark he was trying to leave blossomed, and would have begun to fade, but didn't. Tony stopped dead, staring at the place he'd just bit. "Steve, stop." Immediately, Steve released him, sliding away, scared that he'd hurt Tony in some way. "No, get over here, let me see your neck." Tony ordered, and the strength behind it had Steve scrambling to comply; Tony did not give orders unless he really meant them. "Steve, you're not healing like you usually do." Tony told him, grazing his thumb over the mark, "Steve, you got hit by something, did the medics check you over?"

"Of course." Steve replied, his head spinning slightly at the thought that he wasn't healing.

Tony's mouth twitching was the only sign Steve had of Tony hearing the _you're the one that doesn't go to medical when he should_ that lay behind that response. "Did you have Bruce check you over?"

"N-No, he was still Hulked out when I headed home."

Tony turned them, pushing Steve against the wall and pinning him with a look, "Steve, do you feel anything else? The cuts on your arms healed, but whatever they hit you with may just be working slowly."

Steve opened his mouth to tell him that no, he didn't feel any other symptoms of strangeness when he took in the fact that Tony seemed to have gotten two inches taller, or he was shrinking. "Tony, the serum...I think it's r-reversed the serum."

Tony reached up, laying his hands on either side of Steve's neck as Steve started to spiral into a panic, his eyes huge as he looked right into Steve's soul, "Breathe with me, Steve." He urged softly, his thumbs a metronome as Steve forced his breaths to match Tony's. It took him a moment for the pounding of his pulse in his ears to recede before he realized that Tony was counting out his breaths, holding them in for longer than necessary and letting them out slow. "We'll figure this out, babe." Tony whispered, kissing his forehead. "JARVIS, tell Bruce we have a problem, and let Coulson know that once he's done reaming Clint about jumping off of buildings without air support that he needs to get his ass down to Bruce's lab, too."

" **Of course, sir.** "

"Pull up all the medical records for Steven Grant Rogers we have access to, and all the ones we don't, and be prepared to run scans on Steve as soon as we get to the cameras." Tony ordered easily, thumping the shower off and grabbing a towel that he wrapped around Steve, herding him from the bathroom while he himself dripped into the carpet. Tony got him into a t-shirt and boxers, not bothering with actual pants as he pulled on boxer-briefs and a button-up he didn't bother to button before grabbing Steve's hand and pulling him along to the elevator with direct access to the labs.

Tony punched in his override code, and they dropped faster than strictly necessary, Tony pulling Steve into a tight hug, his head laid over Steve's heart. " **Sir, it would appear that the progression of the effects of the ray are increasing in speed; Captain Rogers was a quarter-inch shorter upon arrival at the tower than he was upon leaving, but has now lost two and a half inches and counting. Muscle mass appears to be deteriorating rapidly; estimated time until full return to the natural form of Captain Rogers projected to be one and a half hours.** "

To his credit, Tony didn't react to the news; just holding him until the elevator slowed to a graceful stop, then sliding their fingers together as he pulled Steve along. "Bruce!" Tony bellowed into the expanse of lab that Tony had given the physicist. "I need you, buddy, c'mon!"

"What's happened?" Bruce asked a little breathlessly, pulling on his own shirt, having clearly just un-Hulked. "JARVIS said something-" Bruce stopped dead, staring at Steve with wide eyes.

"Whatever those AIM goons hit him with, it's reversing the serum." Tony told him without missing a beat, "I need you to synthesize whatever drugs he's going to need when it gets to that gorgeous immune system it gave him; and tell me if there's anything that's not out there for us to use to protect him."

Bruce cut his eyes away, smiling slightly at Tony, "You'll make leaps and bounds in the vaccination world if you have to, just to keep Steve standing, huh?"

"I did not get my doctorate in chemistry just because I'm pretty." Tony agreed drily, squeezing Steve's fingers with his own, "I'm going to head off Coulson; you get started, okay?" Bruce jerked a nod, already pulling up Steve's medical files. As much as Bruce didn't like using the holographic interface that Tony had built into both their labs, he would make exceptions; and laying out all of Steve's files was as good an exception as any as he bent over his tablet. Tony reached up when Bruce was ensconced, pulling Steve into a kiss that was just as slow and sweet as any they'd had before, and sighing when he released him. "I love you, Rogers. I'll do everything I damned well can to keep you safe."

"I'm pretty sure," Bruce began as Tony swept out of his lab to meet Coulson at the lifts, "that if you have an asthma attack after I put you on some meds to help that, he'll figure out some kind of wunderdrug that will be a one-time dose and no more asthma for the rest of your life."

Steve laughed shakily, ducking his head, "I should've known that if this happened, he'd be more worried about keeping me breathing than he would about...about how I'll look." Swallowing, Steve looked over at Bruce.

"He's going to be insufferable if he takes a good read through these. I know that he has before, but I think he was coming off a sixty-hour engineering binge after the Loki attack at the time, so he may not have registered everything." Bruce poked around his files for a moment, then looked over at Steve, "He was never in it for how you looked, Steve. You've got to know that."

Steve nodded, frowning, "I do know that...but knowing it and accepting it are two different things."

"We both know about Tony's past, but you better than anyone should know how fiercely loyal that man is; he would love you even if you'd never love him back, Steve; he was prepared to love you like that, because for a while there, he thought you never would love him back." Steve made a pained noise at the thought of all the time he'd wasted in the beginning, when he and Tony were friends, but it seemed like just barely, and Tony would flirt with him like breathing. It turned out, that was Tony's defense mechanism more than anything else; to flirt blatantly was something he did to everyone, so turning it on against Steve had been to try to lump him in with everyone else in order to protect his very breakable heart from Steve realizing how close he was to it. "When you finally kissed him, it was like watching a dam collapse against the weight of the water."

Steve remembered that night, and it still made him smile despite himself.

The Avengers had been invited to Asgard, and Tony had just admitted to Steve that he no longer drank; hadn't for a while. Steve had done his damnedest, as a friend, to keep Tony from the strange Asgardian booze that everyone pushed into his hands, and Steve had found out that night that he may not have the metabolism capable of getting drunk on alcohol, but he most certainly had the metabolism to get drunk off of alien liquid magic. He wasn't completely clear on what had happened after he'd faceplanted into Tony's neck two hours into the feast, but he remembered glimpses; one of which, he was so very thankful to say, was kissing Tony for the first time. He'd wanted to kiss Tony for a while; wanted to wrap him up in his arms and give him some measure of the safety he gave Steve, but the act Tony had put on against him had been too good for Cap's regular inhibitions. Tony had withdrawn from him after that, at least until they'd started sleeping beside each other a couple days later, and then they were no longer Steve Rogers and Tony Stark as two separate entities; they weren't apart anymore, but paired inextricably together.

The fear Tony had had about Steve regretting his drunken decision to do his damnedest to kiss a genius stupid had been assuaged when Steve had been there still, goading him into eating, and tricking him into taking breaks, and letting his touches linger on his skin for as long as he could stand to allow himself without simply pulling the other man in and devouring the protests. "At least the pining stopped? On both our parts?" Steve offered, and Bruce laughed a deep, full-body laugh.

When Tony and Coulson walked in, Steve had taken note that his arms were far smaller in the usually tight-fitting tee than they had been, and he seemed to be even shorter, the panic clawing at the back of his throat while Bruce and JARVIS discussed possible asthma medications only eased when Tony came up to where Steve sat on a medical table and pressed his face into Steve's neck, holding him tight.

"You okay?" Steve asked quietly.

"Yeah. Just thankful that it started with all this, and you didn't pop a fever or have an asthma attack before we knew what was happening." Tony told him tightly, taking his hands and threading their fingers together. "I've been un-benched until you're in foiling-alien-takeover shape again, Cap. Or would you rather I started working on building you a suit?"

Steve laughed, shaking his head, "If Bruce thinks it can be undone, I can wait for that."

"Even if it meant you got to fly?"

"I'd rather fly in your arms than out of them," Steve whispered as Coulson and Bruce discussed possible things that the ray could have done, "besides, you just got my scalemail right; I'm not letting that go to waste now."

Tony snorted, shaking his head, "This is not _right_ , Steve. This is...mediocre at best-"

"I'm not wearing full armour like you, Tony; they would have hit me one way or another no matter what kind of resistance you built into that suit." Steve murmured, resting his forehead against Tony's. "But tell me what your brain's coming up with right now. I want to know."

Tony drew in a breath to the full extent of his lung capacity, and Steve cringed to himself that neither of them would be breathing deeply now. "Mainly it's a repetitive stream of all the notes Howard ever made on the process, and 'dear god, please don't hurt him, if you hurt him I'll find a way to hurt you back'. If I don't find a way to break the loop soon-" Steve covered Tony's mouth with his, playing with the short strands of hair at the back of his neck, and squeezing Tony's hips with his knees. Tony exhaled shakily against his mouth, his thumb rubbing up under the edge of Steve's shirt, brushing pure heat against Steve's lower back, "Okay, that's...absolutely better. You should remember that."

"I will." Steve promised, grinning hugely. "What do you think the ray is doing?"

"Red Skull became the Red Skull because he had no Howard to pump him full of Vital-Rays, whatever the fuck those really are; I think it's stopping the serum's upkeep in your body with a light burst at the same frequency to cancel out the radiation they used. At first, the serum was able to work without the lingering effects, but now that it's not able to get cohesion, you're changing back." Tony told him, low enough not to disturb the other two, though Steve noted that Coulson's ears seemed to perk up.

"Why would AIM make a weapon to take me out specifically?" Steve asked, curiously.

"Because they hate me?" Tony suggested, tucking his face into Steve's neck again, "And the best way to get to me is through you."

Steve made a small noise at that, cringing for real now. "I hate that."

Tony shrugged, "It's Villain 101, Steve. Find a weakness, strike there."

"Tony is injured and Steve is powerless; you two are the twin heads of the Avengers, it may be a ploy to weaken the team." Coulson spoke up, his mouth set in grim lines.

"Thankfully, Bruce is brilliant and my back is almost healed up. And I am definitely _not_ a head of the Avengers. I can barely play on a team, let alone be co-captain for it." Steve let out a low growl, looking up at Tony from under the thick feather of his blond lashes. "Don't look at me like that, Steven; it's unbecoming for you to argue with me right now."

"Unbecoming? Have we _met_?" Steve laughed, and Tony grinned like a schoolboy caught doing something he knew he wasn't meant to by someone he knew would never punish him for it.

"So what do we do about the shrinking?" Bruce asked, studiously ignoring Tony.

"I vote we get our hands on that ray and see what we can find from that. AIM doesn't tell its grunts anything, so if I have to go hunting for one of the higher-ups, I want to exhaust everything else first. I'd rather stay with Steve than tear them to smouldering pieces right now."

"See, this is why evil prevails. Good gets a hot boyfriend and gets lazy." Clint laughed, walking in like he owned the place. Tony, who did own the place, didn't blink an eye as Clint's gaze swept over Steve, then turned to him, "Natasha would like me to tell you that an attempt was made on Pepper's life, Tony. She's fine; Natasha got her to cover and killed the mercs gunning for her, but..."

Tony had gone stock-still, and Steve bit back his worry as Tony's dark eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment, his features paler than Steve liked as he started talking in a measured, controlled voice, "Nat needs to stay with Pep to make sure she's safe. That's perfectly fine. Coulson; would you sub in any time we have to go into the field?"

"Of course." Phil replied easily, a dark light shining in his grey eyes. A threat against Pepper Potts was a threat against the heart of the team, and Phil would smash the Council's heads in before letting anyone hurt his team.

Steve took a deep breath, feeling the long-familiar grit of a coming inability to breathe pull at the air he managed to get into his lungs. "Going after Pepper is just foolishness." Bruce sighed, shaking his head as Clint's assessing gaze swept over Steve, "Natasha won't even need us to protect Pepper; she'll go Terminator and kill everything that stands in the way of taking care of Pep."

"That's not inaccurate." Tony murmured, and Steve squeezed his hand until the dark eyes finally blinked back into focus, the heartwrenching concern in them making Steve want to pound something into dust.

"I've synthesized what you'll need as the serum wears off, Steve," Bruce spoke up, coming over with a little tray; three needles and an inhaler, "these are vaccines; the inhaler is an as-needed medication. I don't expect that you'll run into most of the stuff in these, but with us..." Bruce shrugged a i _you never know_ /i because they really never knew, and Steve offered the arm that Tony wasn't holding the hand of. "I'm also going to want to take some blood to make sure the serum stays put, even if it's gone dormant. That'll give us a better idea of what's going on."

Tony didn't look as Bruce administered the needles and drew a phial of blood, and Steve didn't blame him; he hated to see those he loved having to go through that, too. "I think it's effecting the radiation Howard used, not the serum itself." Tony grit, his eyes like flint.

Bruce considered that, nodding slightly, "It's possible. This will give me a better idea." Tony flinched a nod, and Clint idly angled over to them.

"Clint, stop comparing your muscle mass to Steve's; he could bench press two of you normally, you don't need the ego boost, particularly as it's a false ego boost." Phil ordered without looking up from the tablet Bruce had handed him.

Tony snorted, looking at Clint dead in the eye, "I will tell Thor you wanted to challenge him to an arm-wrestling contest, bird brain. Don't think I won't."

Clint held up his hands, palms out in the universal 'I'm unarmed' signal, though he, Phil, and Natasha were never actually unarmed. "You guys are just no fun."

Steve chuckled once, though he didn't feel the mirth. "It's fine. I'm going to be a shrimp soon anyway."

"Yeah, but Barton's head does not need to get any bigger." Tony tossed off, light as you please and smirking all the while. Steve hated that smirk, because it didn't reach his eyes; barely managed to be convincing on his mouth.

"You're one to talk, Stark." Clint replied evenly, shadowing Phil as though summoned as the man strode out of the lab.

"The dosage for the inhaler?" Tony asked Bruce, picking it up in a move so viper-fast that Steve's hindbrain started screaming that he needed to be worried about this.

"Two puffs, hold for a count of ten, release breath." Bruce replied, distracted already.

"I'll collect the blood samples when you need them, Bruce, just let JARVIS know." Tony told him, helping Steve down from his perch and walking him out. Steve leaned against the wall of the elevator, now looking up at Tony, if only a little, "You're gonna be fine, Steve."

"I know I will be, Tony." Steve murmured, feeling strangely unafraid in the face of Tony's worry and fear. He squeezed Tony's fingers, offering a quirk of the lips, "I've got you: The very definition of 'find a way or make one'." Steve rocked forwards, kissing Tony chastely, just to feel him come alive under his lips. "You're not telling me that if you can't fix it you won't love me anymore, though, right?"

Tony choked, wrapping Steve up in his arms, "God, no. You're Steve no matter the packaging, babe."

"Good. Just checking." Steve laughed into his throat, practically feeling himself change now. "I know you're worried about Pepper. You should go see her."

"It's no the first time someone was stupid enough to try make an attempt of Pepper's life. She doesn't need to see me, and I'm not going to get in the way when I could be safe from being stabbed with a stiletto heel here at home with you."

Steve laughed, shaking his head. "Let me tell you now; you're not going to get a good night's sleep if I sleep in our bed with you. I ran cold like this-nearly-impossible-to-warm-up kind of cold-and I...I may have stopped breathing in my sleep a few times..." Steve trailed off as Tony pulled away, looking down at him with such an expression of resignation that he felt a little like giggling, just to break the tension.

"And you told no one about the sleep apnea because you wanted in the army too badly." Tony sighed as though Steve was deeply disappointing him, pinching the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb for a moment. "Bucky was with you then?" Steve nodded, inwardly cringing at what Tony's reaction would be to finding out Bucky and he often shared a bed. "Well, remind me to thank him for keeping your ass alive, and also get some tips and tricks on dealing with the sheer idiocy of someone with as many conditions as you have even thinking of leaving the house. Honestly, Steve; you say I'm bad at being a patient? Jesus, your medical file read like a fucking textbook!"

Steve cringed outwardly now, "Bruce and I were hoping you were too sleep deprived to remember..."

Tony shot him a look, and Steve shifted on his feet, wondering as the doors slid open behind Tony's back if it would look too much like running away for him to dart around the man and lock himself in the bedroom: Fights, he did not back down from, but this was not something he could fight.

Steve felt suddenly very cold, and then there was a pile of fabric pooling at his feet. He looked down and regretted it; he was just as rail-thin as he remembered, and his boxers no longer had the bulk of his hips and ass to hold them up. "Well, at least that happened with you and not Clint."

Tony looked like he was going to spontaneously combust, and then he burst out laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

The scent of linen and roses wafted in the door behind him, and Steve smiled to himself without needing any other indicator of who it was coming to visit, "Hello, Miss Potts!"

The conference table littered with journals released the hold it had on him in favour of turning to Pepper in the doorway. "Steve..." Pepper breathed, eyes wide, and Steve didn't blame her for it in the least, "Natasha told me you were hit with something...dear god, how did you manage to get Tony to let you out of the apartment like that?"

The Steve Rogers that sat at the conference room table was five foot-two and had a haunted look that made him seem oddly underfed, even for as much as his face really hadn't changed, post-serum-and Tony had actually been the one making _him_ eat that morning. He looked down at himself, in a white t-shirt that was looser than he'd had for years now, and a pair of blue jeans that had been included in a small mountain of clothes that had miraculously shown up for him that morning, "For some reason, he made me promise that no one in the seventeen to twenty-eight age range would see me?"

"It's because you're adorable and I'm trying hard not to just hug you right now and not let go; anyone that young would be actively trying to keep you." Pepper admitted, and groaned as Steve blushed, a puppyish look of surprise taking over his features, "Natasha also told me that I needed to expect that, and I was still not prepared."

Steve laughed as she hid her face in one hand, gesturing for her to sit with him at the table, "I've been reading Agent Margaret Carter's journals; were you looking to join me?"

Pepper's eyes widened, her smile turning into an outright beam as she looked over the array on the table, but hesitated to sit. "Aunt Peggy was the one to hire me, really; after Tony's parents died, she said that he needed someone who would be able to do whatever he needed of them, and showed up at Harvard business school knowing that she'd find me, the exact person she needed, there. When I first met her, she was...well, you know; she was breathtaking. And apparently severely hungover while being breathtaking, because she'd challenged Tony to some kind of drinking game the night before, and the amount of alcohol they seemed to have consumed should have ended in hospital visits." Steve was laughing quietly, not familiar this part of the story of Tony-and-Pepper: not sure if Tony even knew. Pepper's smile had turned into a wistful thing as she remembered the unstoppable force that rather inspired her still, "She told me that she was the one hiring me, but my loyalty was to Tony, through and through, and if I didn't keep that loyalty, she would get even scarier than she already was, and that was enough of a threat that I never even thought, I just...turned into what Tony needed of me. I think it was the best thing that could have happened for me, too. Without my time with Tony, I'm not sure that I would've learned about who I could be; the strength I'm really capable of." Pepper shrugged, and Steve thought for a moment that that wasn't true: there was no world in which Pepper Potts wasn't a force of nature in a stylish stiletto heel.

"Peggy had a way of seeing the bigger picture at all times..." Steve murmured, his smile gone sad at the edges at the memories of Peggy in a red dress.

"I don't know, she missed out on a damn good dance partner." Pepper replied as if she could read those memories right out of his head, and he laughed, shaking his head as he sat back in the chair. He wondered if his lover and Pepper Potts hadn't spent too much time together, because that was exactly the same trick Tony pulled. "If I were in her shoes, I wouldn't have waited."

Steve gave her a shy, conspiratorial look, "Considering Tony taught me how to dance in the end? I don't regret it as much as I thought I would."

Pepper smiled almost wistfully, nodding as she sat down with a grace that made Steve wonder, sometimes, if people like Pepper and Tony weren't really i _always_ /i dancing, "He's got a way of picking up slack. Maybe too much, sometimes. I know that it seemed like he wasn't doing his own work for a while there," Pepper paused, gauging his reaction, and when she didn't see what she thought she might, she pressed on, "but it's not that he wasn't doing his job; he did-he does...a hell of a lot more than he should, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you having his back out there, let alone that you make him take care of himself a little more sanely in here. He doesn't seem to do his job because he's too busy doing everyone else's too much of the time. He doesn't like the risk of something harming anyone other than him, you know. You've seen it enough; you have to know. He'll take risks to himself as easy as breathing, but the second there's a risk to someone, because of something he's done or did not do, he's...beyond my reach. Not beyond yours, though, from what I've seen. You can pull him out, make him stop and breathe for a second; I've never been able to really do that. I had to resort to nagging him into doing his own work most of the time, even though he was neck-deep in the problems other people were causing." Pepper smiled a small, soft smile even as she rolled her eyes, leaning forwards in her chair slightly, "Do you know why Tony hates Hammer so much?" Steve shook his head; a thousand rants about the inferiority of HammerTech ringing in his ears, but not one hint about what drove Tony to the raving, "Hammer is not the brain behind the operation-obviously: he's just the front man. And he's fine with slapping his name on inferior product and calling it just as good as what Stark Industries was making. For a long time, because it was cheaper, HammerTech got the contracts. And then Tony showed the top military brass the analysis that detailed how many lives Hammer's guns were taking by being defective versus the slightly higher price of Stark Industries' quality weapons-and how _cost-efficient_ that would turn out in the end." Pepper spat the words with the ire of a woman whose good friend had been saved because of that very report; someone utterly sick of lives lost for the bottom line. "Tony won the first set of contracts because he was going to go to the media with it. He hates Hammer because the man will sell something imperfect to the point of laughability without a qualm about who will get hurt in the end. Even when he was killing people, Tony did it to save others as much as he could.

"He doesn't like to admit it, but Tony Stark does have a heart behind that flashlight in his chest." Flicking her hair out of her face, Pepper regarded him with clear eyes, "When I was...when I was running interference between you, it was to protect you both, not just him. You needed to learn a little more about the world you were going to be fighting for; and Tony had to figure out that you weren't meant to be everything any of them had ever said you were. That you are just as fallible as he is."

"I would've thought that our first meeting on the Helicarrier would have proven that." Steve interrupted quietly, unable to stop himself. Unable to characterize the look she shot him as anything but soft, though, so Steve knew Pepper didn't mind that particular interruption.

"Steve, you told him exactly what he'd heard from Howard for years; you know that. What you're learning now is that Peggy Carter loved that little boy, might have gone to Afghanistan to get the grown man back if we'd taken much longer. You're your own man, I realize; but if you had known about this," she gestured to the table and all the history it held, "would you have been so quick to jump to conclusions? Would you still have said those things you said without pausing to think, or would you have taken a moment to try to see what Peggy saw?" Pepper smiled enigmatically, then sighed as she thought over those early days and her anger at Captain America for hurting someone who had believed in him, "You and Tony shouldn't work-on paper, you don't work at all: You're too _good_ , and Captain America was Tony Stark's hero, and you shouldn't be able to love your heroes how he loves you. But Tony's math is never wrong, and he knew that it'd be you. Right from the start, if I know him. Then again, had I not stepped in between you, he might have been successful in making you think that you were just like everyone else, and I shudder to think of a world in which that happened, because it has to be you, Steve. No one else is good enough for him."

"I've never thought about what would have happened, but I have to agree about him chasing me away." Steve murmured softly, blinking up at her as if it'd dispel the mental image of a world in which Tony had managed to keep them apart, "I'm sorry you had to run interference, though; that you think this started before you and Tony were even-"

"No, Steve: I know that...Tony's as stubborn as a mule when he really loves someone, and he won't give up until you make him. I know you and he never would have... And don't be sorry for being the one he needs; it's neither his doing nor yours. It was supposed to be me, I know; but I have no regrets that it's you; when you're the one that can weather the storm and still love him how he needs to be loved." Pepper shrugged, "I couldn't. Not and survive."

Steve broke the quiet after barely a moment considering that, "I'm not sure you give yourself enough credit, Miss Potts."

"I'm quite sure the same can be said of you, Steve." She answered evenly. She took a deep breath, settling regally into the chair and regarding him with a small smile that would make the most hardened of CEOs weep into their wheaties at the mention of it, "Now, I've been summarily told that I'm not to go anywhere without an Avenger escort for the next week at least, and I've opted to be babysat by you for now, since the Board has somehow sided with Natasha on whether I should take a break for a few days after such a harrowing attempt on my life." Pepper rolled her eyes as she said it and broke the violently efficient illustration of just how much of a queen she was, pulling the first of Peggy's journals to her without asking which one to start on, kicking her heels off under the table to curl her legs under her on one of the spacious chairs that they had to specially order for Steve, Thor, and Tony when he wore the suit.

"I'm fairly certain she wouldn't have threatened them into that, but I can't say with _absolute_ certainty...if that makes you feel any better." Steve couldn't stop the small smirk if he tried.

Pepper snorted, "Oddly, it doesn't."

The easy camaraderie between them now was so far off from the first aborted attempts Steve had made that it was a difference of night and day; and for as much as they were fundamentally different, Pepper and Tony were more often than not the only ones on the others' side, so it should not have surprised him that the woman who had smiled beatifically the whole time Natasha had introduced them had then also threatened to put her high heel through the soft of his temple if he came near her on their first meeting thereafter. For as much as he'd known she would be the one to protect Tony, he hadn't thought it would be quite like that. Pepper, after all, was a business woman; not one to burn bridges, even if they'd come pre-doused in kerosine. It wasn't until much later, after Steve had started an overture to being friends with Tony, that he had the first hint of just why Pepper Potts would threaten an American icon with death for the slightest provocation after what he'd said to her best friend. Tony had been the one to explain it to him; wildly amused as he'd been rushing around the Tower getting ready to meet with Pepper for a gala, Steve watching him get ready in much the same way a child would; dreaming of looking that way one day, when he was...well, when he would be content in his skin enough. Tony had told him in fits and starts that Pepper actually believed he had a heart; and was of the opinion that when Tony Stark's childhood hero threw Tony's own heroics in his face, it was likely to break that heart. He'd told Steve the last standing in front of the man, fastening cufflinks with blindingly fast, sure movements and tying his tie without a stutter in the movements of those clever, fast fingers. The notion that Steve had any power over such a graceful, powerful creature was almost laughable to him then: he was little more than the big lug in the corner, unsuited for consumption when it came to things beyond doing battle, because he had yet to be lucky enough for Tony to help him find more than a threat in his own strength. Tony had paused for a minute, a flash of _bad decision_ going through his dark eyes, and then he'd grinned, nodding to himself as he'd promised to show Steve what he meant, since he could tell that Steve didn't believe him.

Three days later, Steve and he pulled up to a sprawling mansion on Fifth Avenue, and Steve had to wonder why Tony had made the Tower-had insisted on living in the tower while it was under construction-when he had a house like this.

He didn't wonder for long: Howard was a ghost in those walls, and Tony almost visibly faded into himself the moment they stepped through the door to what was now headquarters of the Maria Stark Foundation. It had startled Steve to see him get so contained; the whirling dervish of energy and genius turning into a sedate, overcautious tentativeness that had Steve's stomach in knots. Tony offered a sad half-smile in response to Steve's unasked question, but gave no answers as he ghosted through the house, up to a library. Tony had asked Pepper to arrange for all the Captain America memorabilia Howard had collected to be donated to the Smithsonian after his parents had died, Tony had explained, but Pepper, being Pepper, hadn't had the heart to get rid of _everything_. Tony brought him to a reading alcove; his steps slowing as he turned to the shelves with something very close to fondness in his features, and then Steve realized what he was seeing: the carefully preserved, but obviously well-loved comic books that Tony Stark had read as a child. Comic books he now knew Peggy Carter had started the collection of.

Steve had started feeling a little lost at the collection of dozens old comics here in the middle of a library of what had been a mansion, and was now a charity foundation because the little boy that had grown up in its walls didn't want to exist within them if it could be avoided. Laughing suddenly, Tony had plucked up one of the books, then tossed it to him at the look of confusion Steve had shot him-as if there was no way that Steve might fumble it and injure the delicate pages. He'd pointed Steve to a chair, and told him to just give it a skim and try to tell him why Dum Dum Dugan had laughed himself sick when he'd read it to Tony the first time. Fifteen minutes later, horrified at the utter schlock, Steve had a small pile of them beside him; alternately laughing hysterically and feeling guilty that Peggy and the others had been shunted to the side; sidekicks and little more. Tony had joined him after a few minutes of amassing their reading pile, blowing off three meetings and whatever other obligations he'd had that day in favour of sitting on the floor, reading the comics of his childhood with the man the comics had been written about, and when Pepper finally found them, Steve had gotten to his feet once she was done yelling and leaned down to look her dead in the eye, requesting that he be allowed to hug her and to thank her for saving the comics, because he'd needed the laugh.

True to form for breaking the tension of a moment, Tony had tossed what had turned out to be her favourite at her so that she'd join them, and ultimately they'd all laughed until they'd cried.

The quiet, steady presence of another person in the room with him at least allowed Steve a little leeway to resist getting quite as lost in those journals as he had been; Pepper fetching coffee while Steve got them food, the two of them silently working through the years until Steve shut the last book they had; the one from just before Peggy had fallen victim too badly to her dementia. Steve took as deep a breath as he could through his nose, pursing his lips as if he could stop himself from being sick from sheer force of will, and Pepper set down the journal in her own hands, sitting up on the chair and reaching for him, pulling him into a hug that was soft and warm and as strong as all the wonderful women he'd lost in his life. He wanted desperately to blame his inability to breathe and the tears pricking at his eyes on dust, but the journals were as dustless as if they were new: And Peggy had just written of Tony coming to visit as the world exploded about a hero called Iron Man, even though the date on the page had been decidedly after the announcement that Tony Stark was, in point of fact, Iron Man.

"I asked that Tony be allowed to read these, too." Steve admitted, voice sounding rough, buried in Pepper's red-gold hair, "What do you think?"

"I think that Tony's already read them, Steve. They may not be digitized, but it was not Peggy's estate that handed them to SHIELD at her request. Tony went to visit on one of her more lucid days, and she was furious with herself for losing it so badly that her own journals were starting to show the results. She decided that she didn't want to try to reclaim the broken parts of herself with them; it'd just make it worse when she wasn't able to anymore. She loaded him up with them, told him that SHIELD could have them if they wanted them, or he could burn the lot. Tony didn't even ask SHIELD, just couriered all of them to Phil Coulson's front door a week later." She slowly disengaged, brushing her thumbs over his cheeks and putting on a smile very like the one that Tony pasted on when something was hurting him, and he didn't want to admit it. "He knows how much she loved him already. And how much you love him, too."

"He keeps telling me that I'll leave him." Steve admitted through numb lips, not meeting her eyes because it felt terrible to be asking Pepper for advice with this. "I'm not sure I know how to convince him that I never would."

Pepper pursed her mouth, but her eyes weren't unkind, just calculating. "Well, believe it or not, I wouldn't blame you if you did. You and this Barnes man were close: I remember reading the comics, and you don't have to tell me that they did no justice. Hell, Tony grew up listening to the actual stories straight from the Commandos; so if he thinks it's possible you'd be happier with Barnes, I-"

Steve did meet her eyes then, the blazing light in them taking her aback a little, even if she had half-expected it. "I couldn't leave Tony, not for anyone. Not ever."

Pepper's smile was slow and knowing, her eyes shining with pride as she reached to take his hands, "And that's why I knew it was going to have to be you." She told him, voice soft as she ran her thumbs over his wrist, subtly taking his pulse, "We'll figure this out, Steve. We'll find a way for Tony to come to terms with keeping his happiness. Even if he thinks it's already leaving him." Pepper's faith in him made his breath catch as he nodded slowly, his gaze hopeful. "It's not going to be easy, because Tony doesn't do easy, but I believe in you, Steve Rogers; if anyone can out-stubborn Tony Stark, it's gotta be you."

Steve's smile was slow, the lines of it shy as he breathed in the familiar smell of her perfume, thanking whatever deity it was that had seen fit to bless him with the women in his life, "If I've got you in my corner, how could I lose?"


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Rating change for a reason, darlings!**

Steve was sitting on his usual stool, feet dangling as he sketched idly, Tony sacked out on the cot Steve had dragged down to the workshop during their last fight about Tony's sleeping habits-which was really about Tony's worry that he was becoming dependent on Steve sleeping next to him. He'd brought it down and set it up and had slept there himself since Tony wasn't going to come up to bed and was depriving them both, then had woken up with Tony at his back, despite the fact that it was supposed to be the size of a single bed. Half-tempted to slide into bed with him and recreate that morning slightly more comfortably-being shrunken had to be good for something-Steve traced his pencil over the the page to create the lax curve of Tony's neck as lovingly as he'd trace his lips over that skin. Tony, he knew, had gone to bed with him the night before, and snuck out of bed sometime after Steve had fallen asleep thinking that it wouldn't result in Steve waking up to one of his nightmares if he'd started the night out with the warmth of Tony's body beside him. Instead, it'd been worse, and the only thing that soothed him was finding Tony down here, Howard's records piled around Tony's cherry red hot rod telling him exactly what he was looking for, though Steve was half-surprised that Tony himself wasn't piled in the car, unconscious and using the dreaded paper notes as a blanket.

It was the notes on Project Rebirth that were piled in the passenger's seat in easy seize-and-devour distance, and Steve could see the holograms of the sarcophagus-like machine Howard had built idly floating with sixteen different lists speculating what radiation had been used in those Vita Rays. Bruce had been frustratingly without results, and Tony had been getting more and more antsy the longer Steve was effected. As he carefully rendered the arc of Tony's arm thrown over his head, Steve considered the mounting desperation he could see in the way Tony searched for an answer; the thought that Tony didn't want him the same way was ringing in his head in a voice that was small, and quiet, but there nonetheless. Frowning as he smudged the lines of Tony's hair with a delicate touch, Steve ached to ask him; to talk to him, worried all the while that Tony wouldn't want to talk. Tony refusing to talk to him was a historically bad sign, and Steve's throat felt tight at the thought of it. But there was nothing he'd be able to do if it came to it. He could make himself learn to live with the fact that Tony's attraction to him was more physical than he thought-

"Stop that now." Tony groaned from the cot, but didn't move anything but his lips, as if he'd been awake the while time, carefully posed, "You're thinking bad thoughts, I can hear it: stop it. Keep drawing me like one of your French girls and then let me take you to breakfast, because I have a bet going with Rhodes on if you can put away an entire trucker's special at this size or not."

Steve shot him a look that he couldn't have seen with his head thrown back on the pillow and his eyes still closed, but Tony shot him a smirk anyway, then visibly forced himself to relax his features back into the pose. "I suppose it's his own fault for taking the sucker's bet." Steve murmured after a minute, his pencil resuming its passage over the page. "Why are you down here?"

Relying as he was on Tony's ability to know what was going through his head, Steve wasn't surprised when Tony knew exactly what he was really asking, "Because we can load you up with drugs all we want: you lead a stressful life and have a heart murmur and I will be the one to die first in this relationship, Steven; that's just how it's going to have to happen, 'cause I'm not up for going back to living without you. Certainly not like that, and barely if it happened the other way." Steve's pencil stalled again, and Tony sighed softly, "When I have nightmares, I use your heartbeat to calm my own. I hate to show my true, selfish colours, but I could use the steady beat when I'm worrying out of my mind that someone's going to attack you while you're not capable of breaking them in half with your bare hands."

Steve set down his pencil, sliding to his feet and swallowing a whine at the pull and pop of his joints from having sat there too long. He ambled over to the cot, near Tony's head, and one brown eye peaked open, then Tony blinked both eyes open, sighing again at the look of grim determination in the face of that admittance. "I've got you and Thor and Clint and Nat and Bruce, not to mention Coulson and Pepper-both of whom I would be more scared of than any of you while I'm like this." Steve grinned, and Tony shook his head, but not in disagreement, "I'm safe."

"My head knows that. My anxiety is making this horrible train whistle sound and freaking the fuck out." Tony told him, reaching to rest his hand on Steve's hip, "Get down here, will you?" Twitching a smile, Steve knelt into straddling Tony's thigh, lowering himself into Tony's arms and groaning at the warmth Tony radiated as they tangled their legs together. "I do kind of like this, though." Tony murmured, idle fingers pushing through his hair where his head rested on Tony's chest, "Your weight on me with you completely relaxed, not worried you'll crush me? It's nice."

Steve snorted, shifting slightly to drag one hand up, making a fist under his chin to prop up his head as he looked at Tony and chose to bite the bullet. "Do you...are you still attracted to me like this?" Steve asked with a feeling like he was facing down another stay in the Arctic with Tony on the line this time, and Tony made a sound like he was choking on air.

"Steve, you're gorgeous. Super soldier or no, you're still the most attractive human being I've ever met." Tony paused, features crumpling as he frowned at Steve, "Believe me, Steve; if I wasn't having a constant anxiety attack about your incredibly breakable bones and the supervillians who wish to break them, I doubt I'd let you out of our bed."

Steve snorted, rolling his eyes, but Tony's hand tugged gently at his hair, his features not smoothing out from the concerned furrow working against the laugh lines Steve loved. Steve bit his lip, feeling his own nerves creeping in on him, "Would you...could we try having sex? With me like this?"

Tony's pupils dilated, and his hand slipped from Steve's hair, running down his back. "Yeah...yes, of course..."

"I want to see what it's like when I don't have to watch my strength." Steve admitted, and Tony looked a little dazed at the prospect. "But if you don't want-" Summarily cut off by Tony's hips pushing against his, Steve groaned slightly at the fact that Tony was already getting hard, his hands folded around Steve's hips to grind them together.

"How would you like to do this, then, gorgeous?" Tony asked with his brow cocked and voice low and rough and a touch in itself, sliding down Steve's spine. Steve had the sudden need to have gotten naked already, and to get Tony's mouth all over him, shuddering as he dropped his face into Tony's neck to hide the lust-induced flush that came over him like a heatwave. "How would you like to come?" Steve whimpered, because Tony's voice had somehow gone deeper, darker; and he knew he was faced with an embarrassment of riches here, because Tony was unendingly creative.

"I want you to fuck me." Steve finally managed, his hands fisting at Tony's shirt in a way that certainly would have shredded it if he was at full strength, because he could already feel himself losing control. Tony hummed, pulling him up his body with that grip on his hips and sucking a small mark just under his ear while he rocked his hips up against the small swell of Steve's ass. "I'm not sure I've got the restraint to keep from coming right now, and without that refractory period...oh god, _yes_ -I don't want to leave you hanging."

Tony got a gleam in his eye, and Steve arched into the drag of his hands up his sides, stripping off the t-shirt he'd stolen from Tony. "You never had sex before the serum: we don't know what your refactory period is at all." The gleam was a promise of experimentation, and Steve moaned at the thought alone. Tony's stamina when it came to sex was mind-blowing, but he had always played Steve's body like a virtuoso, and without his normal refractory period, Steve didn't want to think about how quickly Tony could make this come to an earth-shattering climax. And as satisfying as sex with Tony always was, he had never wanted to be the only one satisfied; and the only reason he was comfortable topping for Tony when he was such an easy touch was the fact that he was able to get hard again in moments and make it as good for Tony as Tony made it for him. All he wanted now was to let go and feel Tony letting go with him; to know what it felt like to let himself completely lose grip on his control and his responsibility in a way he couldn't quite manage as a supersoldier, even with as far as they'd come with the sexual education of Steve Rogers.

Tony shoved down Steve's sweatpants, his hand grabbing Steve's ass as soon as it was bared to him, hand large enough against Steve that his fingertips could run between his cheeks with the swell of one firmly clenched in his palm. Steve bucked against the too-light ghost of a touch at his hole, letting out a gasp as Tony's other hand ran down his thigh, hitching his leg up and curling him over Tony without having to lift him off. Grinding into his stomach, Steve sucked Tony's tongue into his mouth, flushed as brilliantly red as could be when Tony shifted, then flipped them on the cot like Steve weighed nothing. He should not have found that as hot as he did, laid out under Tony as the genius broke their kiss to fling his own shirt across the room, groaning in pleasure as Steve's leg immediately wrapped around his waist, dragging him in to grind against him again, bare skin against bare skin this time. Tony bit the tendon in his neck harshly enough that Steve nearly came from the flare of pain while the pleasure of Tony's rolling hips rode through his veins. Loosening Steve's leg with an insistent hand, Tony sat back, ignoring Steve's whimper of protest at the loss of contact as he undid his jeans and threw those, too, blessedly bare beneath.

Steve reached for him the millisecond the sound of Tony's jeans hitting the floor registered, their cocks trapped between them and the friction sending sparks of pleasure up Steve's spine. "Steve," Tony groaned into his chest, hands wrapped around his waist to stop the undulation Steve honestly wasn't conscious of rocking them into, "if you don't let me get the lube, we're not making it past foreplay."

As tempting as that was, Steve wanted much more, dropping his hold and grinning into Tony's reluctant groan at the loss, even though he'd asked for it. Tony growled, nipping at his jaw before rolling to his feet and grabbing for the toolbox that was not in the least stocked with actual tools. Tony dropped a bottle of lube and a row of condoms on the bedclothes, grinning as he climbed onto the side of the bed and leaned over Steve, kissing him slowly and curling against his side, Steve's legs tucking over his as Tony traced a thumb under his lower lip, Steve's tongue peeking out, pink and hot as he laved over the pad, then sucked it into his mouth. Tony whimpered at the sight of Steve's bee-stung red mouth wrapped around his the tan of his skin, reaching for the lube with his free hand and fumbling to open it one-handed. Steve scraped his teeth against Tony's fingertip just to give him a taste of the wild thrill that it brought Steve when Tony bit him, looking up at him with lust-dark eyes and bright red cheeks as he released the digit, moving so that he could part his thighs for Tony's attention. Tony nearly crushed the bottle of lube in finally getting it open, but Steve couldn't manage a laugh, the sound transmuting into a moan as some of the cold fluid dripped over Tony's fingers and onto his abdomen. Tony rubbed his fingers thoroughly to warm it up, kissing Steve in a way that took Steve's brain through something he'd learned to call a hard reboot; slow and deep and so teasingly seductive it was as if Steve wasn't already naked and spread indecently beneath him. Tony slipped a finger over his hole as he made Steve forget his own damn name, and Steve bit down on Tony's lower lip in surprise, the laugh Tony husked out making Steve buck his hips to get to the point where he'd be able to feel that laughter with Tony buried in him.

"Patience is a virtue, Rogers." Tony half-groaned, half-chuckled, pushing his finger fully in and bending to Steve's chest to worship attention over his nipples, sliding a second finger in with the first around the time Steve had a half-formed wonder if he could come just from Tony teasing all the places he most liked to be touched. When Steve had three of Tony's fingers in his ass and no more patience to even pretend to be patient, Steve pushed Tony's hand out of the way, covering the whine at being suddenly empty by pushing Tony onto his back on the bottom of the cot in a move he'd seen Natasha use on Clint with much more violent results; sliding into position to push himself down on Tony's cock. "C-condom." Tony reminded, sounding about as wrecked as Steve felt and the hand he shot out to stop Steve's forward momentum trembling.

"Don't care." Steve muttered, voice the low, determined rumble of Captain America as he lifted up and slowly impaled himself on Tony's cock. Tony choked on his sounds, one hand fisted in the sheets and the other folding around Steve's hip, steadying as Steve's thin arms began to shake at the effort it took not to take it all in one punishing push. Once he was seated fully, Tony too still beneath him as he watched every flicker of emotion on Steve's face, Steve took Tony's hand from his hip, moving it down to brush his fingers over where they were connected, Steve's broken moan nearly echoing in the unusual quiet of the workshop. Tony's thumb caught on the stretched rim of his hole, and Steve jerked like it sent an electric shock through his system, squeezing hard around the girth of Tony before the muscles relaxed so sweetly that Steve was shocked at how easy it was to start dragging himself up a few inches, dropping down fast and hard even for as slow as he went in rising. Tony planted his feet as much as he could on the awkward angle that Steve flipping them had left him in; using every bit of support he could get to thrust up when Steve dropped back down. Steve clenched, hoping he'd be able to feel this later, when with the serum, he healed too quickly to be able to. Tony let him control the pace until he was dripping with sweat and shaking with exertion, then wrapped both arms around him and unfurled from his position on the cot, picking Steve up with him, and Steve felt like he'd come just from that as Tony moved them, laying Steve down against a clear workbench and thrusting fully back into him before slowly dragging himself out. Steve arched into the slow burn, head thrown back and eyes closed as he made aborted little rocking motions to try to chase the breach of Tony's cock in his body.

Driving into him with a ringing slap of skin on skin, Tony expertly shifted his angle to hit Steve's prostate, the high cry forced out of Steve's throat bringing a rabid grin to Tony's pleasure-slack features. Tony drove hard into that angle, and Steve just let himself go; knowing that he was entirely at Tony's mercy and relishing in it.

Not even needing a hand on him with Tony's cock pressed hard into that bundle of nerves, Steve came breathlessly, being kissed through it as his cock striped them both, Steve's lower lip captured as a hostage as Tony's rhythm slowed to help him ride through the aftershocks rattling his higher brain function.

"God, you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." Tony told him with a voice just as wrecked as he was, still wonderfully hard within the hot flutter of Steve's muscles. Steve rolled his hips on Tony's cock, experimenting to see if the shock of sensation that sent roaring through him was pain or pleasure.

"Keep going..." Steve panted, his hands shaking as they reached to ease Tony into a kiss, slow and lingering as he rolled his hips down on the length of heat spearing him open and raw. Tony choked, and Steve smirked in response, lust-drunk and glowing with post-orgasm bliss. "Keep going, Tony, please."

"Don't want to hurt you- _ **AH!**_ " Tony tipped his head back, hips juddering as Steve squeezed around him with delicious intensity.

"Do I look like I'm hurting to you?" Steve asked with a cheeky smile despite the line of concentration forming between his brows, keeping as tight a hold as he could and rolling his hips at the same time, watching as Tony very nearly came just from that.

Tony reached between them, thumbing Steve's slit and licking into his mouth at the same time. Toes curling, Steve bore down on the pressure, his cock twitching in Tony's grip, a mess of precome dripping onto the mess already on Steve's skin as Tony ran his fingers over the length of him in time with his shuddering thrusts, stopping the tight pull of his hand only to trace a thumb down over his balls then behind them, pressing into his perineum as he pressed into his prostate, and Steve nearly shot off the work table, hands scrabbling at Tony's shoulders, blunt nails leaving pink tracks on his tanned skin. Tony bent, pressing kisses to the stark relief of his collarbones, his touch gone gentle, and Steve wondered for a second if there was something wrong: Tony was never this quiet during sex-but then, neither was he.

"You feel so good, Tony," Steve ground out in encouragement, groaning at the sound of his own voice because he was so far gone, "I want to be able to feel this for days." Tony shivered in his arms, his pace slowing and the pressure easing off, which was the opposite of what Steve wanted; so Steve reached up, winding his fingers in Tony's hair and using that grip get Tony to meet his gaze, "I'm still me, Tony. You're not going to hurt me, because I'm not going to let you. Can you trust me with that?"

Tony kissed the words off his lips, and Steve felt a bloom of fondness in his chest for the way Tony was holding him like a precious thing, "The whole distraction thing just switched from you to me, didn't it?" Tony panted with an edge of regret in his voice, "I'm..."

He knew Tony's signs; knew that Tony wasn't about to tell him that he was going to come, and could figure out what Tony was about to tell him, so he cupped his hands around Tony's neck with a tenderness matching Tony's own, "I don't need you to worry about me, not with this. Stop trying to take care of me and fuck me, Tony."

Tony hooked an arm under Steve's knee, and Steve's head thumped back against the table as the shift in pressure sent his body into overload, his cock fully hard again and drooling over his stomach when Tony wrapped his hand back around it. Tony rarely listened to an order, but Steve wasn't so sure that he had managed to sound anything close to in charge-more likely like he was begging. Before long, the building tension in his gut was coiling out, thick and heady, until Steve felt like he wasn't in any sort of control anymore. The satisfaction of it was almost an ache, Steve losing rhythm in pushing back against Tony's thrusts and just riding it out as the pleasure seemed to build like the pressure in a pop can left in the sun.

"Fucking hell, Tony." Steve groaned, and Tony looped his other leg over his shoulder, moving deeper but going slower, making Steve's eyes flutter closed and his bottom lip disappear between his teeth. Finally finding his voice, Steve growled, "I love you so fucking much."

"I love you, too, Steve." Tony murmured, voice low and honest in a way that had Steve shuddering, Tony pressing in tight and staying there as they both came. As Steve panted, stretching out when Tony let his legs drop, Tony raised his come-covered hand in order to lick his fingers clean. Steve moaned at that, dropping his head back again and squeezing Tony's hips with his thighs.

"I don't think I'm going to make it upstairs." Steve murmured muzzily, eyes fluttering open fever-bright, watching Tony with the same lust-blown expression they'd started with, "Please tell me we can both fit on the cot right now."

Tony chuckled, bending down to kiss him softly as he slowly pulled out. Steve hated that part, and Tony hummed gently in response to his wince. His fingers brushed over Steve's rim, but Steve shook his head that he wasn't hurt, nudging Tony with his knee limply and grinning as he reached for him to pull him into another kiss. "We need to put a complete bed down here." Tony decided muffledly as he kissed along Steve's neck. Steve shuddered in his arms, melting into the warmth of his embrace with no compunctions whatsoever about acting like a cat when it came to Tony's body heat and practically purring as Tony cradled him close and kissed over as much skin as he could reach.

"I refuse to move into the workshop, Tony; the cot is bad enough." Steve told him more firmly than he felt, propping himself up on an elbow when Tony straightened and wincing again as he felt Tony's come leaking from him. Tony pressed a kiss to his forehead, padding back to the toolbox, retrieving a container of wet-wipes and cleaning them up a little more thoroughly than he usually did. Steve sat up, moving to the edge of the table and wrapping his legs around Tony's thighs, his arms around his waist as he looked up at Tony with a gravity that wasn't usually a part of their being together. "Is your anxiety still screaming?"

Tony sighed, threading his hand through Steve's hair, "Little bit."

"Is there anything I can do to help that?"

Steve pulled him in tighter and pressed his face into Tony's chest just beside the arc reactor, smiling as he felt Tony's lips against his hair. He closed his eyes and listened to the slowing pound of Tony's heart, the steady, almost imperceptible whir of the arc reactor "I don't know yet." Tony admitted when his heart had slowed to the regular thump, "I need to figure it out."

"Maybe I should have asked more questions." Steve sighed, "That probably would've made this easier."

"Yes, you should've asked questions of the two mad scientists you let stick you with needles and pump you full of r-Wait, I'm being an idiot. You went through the process and you were conscious the whole time! What do _you_ remember?" Tony was suddenly dashing back to his father's notes, the look of manic hope on his features forcing Steve to bite down on a laugh.

"Well, the serum was injected directly into the major muscle groups and the rays were to stimulate growth..." Steve stopped, knowing that that was what was on the tin, and Tony needed to know orders of magnitude more pertinent information than that; "the rays were painful-" Steve cut himself off again as Tony twitched, but shook his head with a faint smile at the memory of Peggy and Erskine yelling to shut the project down, "like getting a sunburn in thirty times the speed-"

"Sonofabitch." Tony breathed, flinching back from the notes like they'd bitten him, "He used solar radiation turned up to eleven, that fucking bastard of a mad-man. The serum stimulated growth, but it needed a reactionary agent to force it to attach to the cells in a stable way: Red Skull became Red Skull because the bonds weren't bonded properly, and what is the one thing that all cells need to survive and bond to life? Thermal energy. The sun is ours; geothermal energy wasn't so hot back then, but if dear old dad took that and ran with it; he may just have stuck you in the equivalent of a solar flare in terms of the radiation signature."

Steve cocked an eyebrow, but did not actually disbelieve it, "Wouldn't that have fried me to a crisp?"

"No, because he also connected a supply of liquid nitrogen, super cooling the whole thing so that the temperatures wouldn't fluctuate too badly-that _dick_!" Throwing his hands in the air, Tony stomped, completely nude, over to his bank of computers, and Steve slid off of the table, padding over to his discarded sweats and sliding into the shirt Tony had been wearing, imagining it was warmer than his own simply because it'd been on Tony last, since both shirts were technically Tony's shirt to begin with. "It felt like getting a sunburn at thirty times the speed because if it weren't for the healing factor of the serum, you would have had a fucking sunburn! It's not your freckled Irish genes that stop you from getting a farmer's tan; it's the damn serum. But I am not sticking you in a coffin full of fucking sunlight, so there's gotta be another way. There's something else-I can feel it."

Steve folded his hands over Tony's shoulders from behind the chair he'd dropped into with a dazed, searching look; leaning into his back slightly, "And I can still feel _you_. Come to bed; your crazy has given me a second wind, I think we can make it now." Steve teased softly, not daring to actually hope he could pull Tony out of the lather he'd worked himself into.

He should have known better than to underestimate Tony's penchant for surprising him, though, standing against the gentle weight of the man as he leaned back into Steve, dropping his head against Steve's shoulder, "Right, afterglow, that is a thing that needs to happen after sex like that. Let's go." Laughing, Steve took Tony's hand, leaning into his side as he walked them into the elevator still naked and completely shameless about it. Tony fixed him with a look of concern once what he'd said completely filtered through, and Steve would have been amused if it wasn't so annoying, "Are you okay, though?"

Steve rolled his eyes, leaning into Tony's chest instead of his side, and biting back a curse at the fact that he was too short to reach Tony's mouth like this. Scowling, Steve growled, "Get down here."

Tony snorted, his laughter trapped between them as Steve kissed him. When the elevator arrived at their floor, Steve felt almost like he'd be able to go again, and Tony seemed to sense this, pulling Steve out of the elevator and heading straight for the shower instead of the bed. "Now, this whole mess started because you bruise like a peach and we were trying to have shower sex. I say, we finish the whole thing off right and actually get to have shower sex, because I'm pretty sure I've figured out how to get you back in fighting shape. Objections?"

Steve let out a single guffaw of laughter, "Like I could say no to you."

Tony groaned, "Jesus, that is way too much power for one man; particularly this man."


	8. Chapter 8

Steve sat in the guest chair that had been moved into the hospital room, looking a little more rough around the edges than he had since the Depression.

He sighed to himself, looking up at the white-wash ceiling with the institutional florescence that was present in thousands of buildings like this one around the world. He was still the size of an anorexic, but he knew Tony was close to solving the conundrum of making the process painless because he had barely seen Tony outside of the workshop or their bedroom for almost a week. In between sitting with Tony while he played with and discarded idea after idea, and working on training the team to be more ready to cohere as a team without him, Steve had finally managed to get in the door of Bucky's room in Medical, despite Fury's wishes on the matter.

Medical was adamant that they weren't about to take Bucky out of the induced coma, but Steve felt better sitting with him that way anyway. It made it less complicated to talk to him, that was for damned sure, "I'm not sure I want you and Tony to meet, if I really let myself think about it. He's not like Howard was; he's a damned genius, yes, but Howard was always working an angle; with Tony, he mostly just calculates all the angles there are and then goes on doing whatever it was he wanted to be doing in the first place. But you two'll gang up on me, I know you will. You won't like him-not at first-but he'll...he has a way of getting under your skin and before you know it, you're laughing so hard you're falling over and he's smirking at you like he's figured you out through and through and it's...it's fucking infuriating, but it always turns out that way: he'll figure you out with just a glance most of the time. You two'd rub each other the wrong way right up until you teamed up to make me regret all my life choices. And you'd tell him the most horrible stories you have, just to make me squirm. I'm actually curious which ones you'd start with, but that may just be a case of curiosity killing the cat here. Personally? I'd start with that time we tried hopping the fence to the rectory to pick apples off their tree and you tore my pants almost in half trying to haul me back over the top of the bars when I got stuck on that branch. That was a good one. Or the time we tried to get old man Michaels to sneak you into the burlesque show and I ended up being the one who got to meet your dreamgirl when the cops raided the place and she ducked out the back. I was worried for a minute there that you were going to strangle me when you found out.

"I'd like to introduce you to Thor and Clint most, though, I think you'd-they make an...interesting combination. You'd get a kick out of them all, but especially Clint's penchant for annoying the damn god of thunder at every opportunity he gets. I think of Morita and Dugan every time he does it; all those times when Dum Dum would poke fun at him for being from Fresno and Morita would just barely deign to save him the next skirmish he got his ass in a tight spot and needed bailing out." Steve chuckled at the memories even though they still hurt, shaking his head. "But the most intriguing part of all, you'd be hell on wheels if you teamed up with Natasha. She's sneakier than you...than you used to be, but it'd be amazing to watch the two of you in action." Steve had caught himself from generalizing that he might know what Bucky would be like now, and swallowed hard against the vicious hope he'd get the chance to find out.

"That is such a bad idea." Clint laughed from the ceiling, and Steve didn't even flinch, " _Such_ a bad idea, Cap: I expected better from such a lauded tactician."

"If you're going to eavesdrop, you may as well share the Doritos you have stashed up there with you." Steve replied blandly-wondering if Tony's information about Clint's bad habits was accurate-and Clint's warm laugh made him grin, if only a little. The drop-ceiling tile directly above him moved away and a bag of chips fell directly into his lap, "Huh, I don't think I've tried Cool Ranch."

Clint laughed again, and the next thing Steve knew, he had a lapful of archer, the chips smoothly snatched out of the way before Clint's admittedly-nice ass landed on his thighs. "You know, you're surprisingly comfy for a stick bug."

"Get off; neither of our significant others would be happy with this." Steve managed, strangled but laughing. Refusing to let himself wonder how a man as bulky as Clint didn't simply fall through the expanded polystyrene he so loved to hide in, Steve did his best to arrange his features into a glare despite his team mate waggling his eyebrows 'seductively'. From the look Clint settled into giving him, he'd had only mixed success in getting his features into any semblance of order.

"Oh, please; you're the possessive one of your relationship. Tony would only actually kill me if I felt you up. Which, I gotta say, Cap? Surprising. I thought he'd be the protector of your chastity belt against all others, because he's a voracious flirt but smart enough to know when he's got a damn good thing going-but no; you're about as subtle with him as a kick in the teeth, even if you don't curb the flirting on his part."

"Kind of impossible to curb the flirting on his part," Steve reasoned as if he'd had this conversation before, shaking his head as Clint slid off his lap and hopped up on the empty side-table, even though it could not have been made for anything close to the weight of a man his size. "Besides, I kind of get a kick out of people thinking that for even a second the flirting's serious."

"That's a little sadistic on your part, Cap: taking pleasure in the hopes and dreams of the idiots who think they can usurp you getting crushed to itty bitty pieces? I mean, I've seen you actually do it, don't get me wrong; that one with the hideously hot pink dress? That was just...masterful, considering he had his back to you for most of her schtick and all you did was quirk your lips when he did turn around, and he turned to Jell-O. I think she was ready to turn the colour of her dress, if the look on her face was any indication."

Steve grinned, remembering that one, too, though for different reasons. He'd ended up pinning Tony to the wall just outside of their elevator after the party, had barely undressed either of them, and they'd spent the night on the plush carpet because they'd been too tired to move once they were done. As it turned out, they'd discovered that rugburn was still an uncomfortable thing to get on your ass, no matter how quickly it healed. Tony had bought him a hot pink bow tie in commemoration of that night, even if Steve was always angled into the blues by Coulson and Pepper. He was planning on wearing it during their next actual date night, but he'd been sitting on that plan for months now, and they hadn't had a suit-and-tie date night since long before that (not that he was complaining; he much preferred curling up with Tony, in sweats, on their couch and watching movies like they were in Steve's time: a news reel and cartoons before the main picture). When it came down to it, going out to a fancy dinner wasn't something either of them really enjoyed most of the time, and they couldn't help it; too many eyes, and too much pressure when the media caught wind and inevitably showed up.

"So, this is the great James Buchanan Barnes of the Howling Commandos, formerly of the 107th. The arm's impressive, but it'll be more impressive when Tony makes it so that it won't kill him. He was a sniper for you guys, right?"

Steve sighed, nodding at Clint's question just as much as his need to fill the void, and respecting it when he knew that Clint already had all this information at his fingertips, "He's been my best friend since...hell, I don't even remember what happened, or why. I'm pretty sure it would've had something to do with me getting into a fight I couldn't win."

"I heard you got into a lot of those," Clint chuckled, then pretended to cast an assessing glance over him, "you know, you could be a particular kind of dangerous: If you let me and Nat get our hands on you, you could be handy in a fight like gangbusters."

"Do you think I could get you and Nat to teach me like that when I'm...me again? Not just the agility training, but...how you two can move like ghosts-the speed and the stealth?"

"You're you now, Steebe." Clint scoffed, "Just a little bit shrunk in the wash. And while there's not much we can do to help big-you look small and unthreatening, which would be your best weapon like this, we can definitely help you with the bits Tony hasn't gotten to yet." Looking bored, Clint opened the bag of chips, smirking to himself, "You do know that Bruce mentioned to Tony that you're sort of shaped like a Dorito with legs, and the reason you haven't tried Cool Ranch is because Tony decided it would be tantamount to cannibalism, right?"

"Dear god, did he actually get Bruce drunk?" Steve laughed, wondering at the depths to which Tony's lack of self-preservation instincts would take him in experimenting with Bruce's tolerance. Bruce found it funny and refreshing in turns, but Steve didn't want to push Tony's luck when the armour still took time to put on and the Hulk could still smash him to bits-even if the Hulk seemed to adore Tony, and was more likely to listen to him than to anyone else unless the order they gave him was 'smash'.

"No, Bruce was sober, but I think Tony had overdosed on caffeine."

"That's almost worse." Steve sighed, taking a chip gingerly.

He'd just crunched on it when Clint, mouth full and crumbs showering out of it, spoke again, "You know, this is how I'd expect you to taste, really." Steve choked on the pieces of chip, and Clint's large hand came down hard on his back, nearly sending him out of the chair. "Sorry! Sorry...Don't tell Tony I nearly killed you?"

"He'd laugh at the way in which you nearly killed me, who are we kidding?" Steve coughed, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. He turned his head to the prone figure on the bed, a grin on his face that felt familiar and kind of foreign on his features now- _I can do this all day_ , "Bucky, this is what I have to deal with now. Not just a lack of flying cars and a severe disparity in the number of robots in the everyday lives of sane people from what we expected, but _this guy_."

"Smart to qualify that it's the number of robots for _sane_ people." Clint practically giggled.

"Tony Stark is an outlier and should not be counted." Steve replied with aplomb, taking a small handful of chips and crunching into one without a flicker of an eyelash.

Clint grinned at the mention of the meme, making a bet with himself that that was Natasha's doing, not Tony's, and crossed his arms over his chest, "So, why are we speaking to the comatose assassin instead of the fully conscious assassin?"

"Because the comatose assassin and I have been through World War II together and he's been the voice in my head since I was a kid?" The coy look that Steve flashed him made Clint want to laugh, but he'd been with Natasha far too long to crack when faced with the feathery lashes and the soft smile. Tony, however, would have basically disintegrated to dust he'd have cracked so bad.

Instead, Clint managed to pout quite effectively...considering Steve had seen him stoically stare down Darcy Lewis at her most doe-eyed, "Steve, we've been through Chitauri and radioactive mushrooms sprouting through concrete, metal, and fucking rubber if a car stayed in one spot for more than five seconds: I don't get no stinkin' best friend badge?"

"We don't need no stinkin' badges!" Steve replied, trying and probably failing for the accent, and Clint looked affronted that he even knew that reference. "Tony and I were told in no uncertain terms, by Coulson, not to let you join in on our Mel Brooks nights. Apparently there was an incident with Robin Hood: Men in Tights and tight tights?"

Clint burst out laughing, and Steve shook his head, "More that I got Thor involved." Clint told him with a shrug, "That and I keep trying to get him to get married to me in a hurry."

Steve raised an eyebrow, his mouth quirking in a half-smile, "Invite me to the bris."

"Pretty sure Coulson would want you to be his best man, if he'd be able to get up the nerve to ask you. But I'm just glad that Tony's teaching you well, even if Phil's taken this piece of joy from my life." Pretending to wipe his eyes, Clint bit back his grin. "Anything else he's taken the joy of introducing you to- _not like that_! God, not like that!" Steve burst out laughing as Clint's voice reached a pitch he hadn't heard since Darcy had ended up seeing Tony just about naked during a skirmish with Doombots that had both stripped the armour and singed off most of his clothes. (Darcy had told Steve they had an understanding between them: She was welcome to find Tony Stark sexy all she wanted, and she could hang out with whomever she wanted including Tony, but she wanted to be damned sure she made it clear that she understood Tony was _his_ and Steve wasn't about to share, and nor could he disabuse her of that notion. Steve had liked her instantly.)

"He's done a lot of the eighties; whole lot of terrible sci-fi, and he wants to angle us into the JRR Tolkien series now that I've finished the books." Steve had a wistful smile as he let his thoughts turn to hours upon hours on their couch, binging them all curled up together with all the paraphernalia necessary for several days worth of movies just the way they liked them.

"Jesus, did he make you actually read them all?"

"No, I wanted to read them...I ended up reading them to him. From the Hobbit to the Silmarillion."

Clint was staring at him as if he was completely bewildered by Steve's dedication to the whole thing, and Steve felt his ears get warm. "You must be amazingly patient."

"Are you kidding? I would read them in the workshop, and Tony would start "accidentally" designing the swords." Steve grinned, the look so bright and happy that it nearly hurt to look directly at.

Clint laughed, shaking his head because he could practically picture it. "Why haven't I gotten a Legolas bow?" He demanded, petulant all of a sudden, and Steve rolled his eyes.

"People keep warning me about sounding like Tony, but: have you _earned_ a Legolas bow?" Clint scowled deeper, guffawing as he threw a chip at Steve's head, and Steve laughed.

"They're all completely right: you should not sound so much like Tony, I'm going to start to think we have a Stockholm Syndrome situation on our hands."

"Fury's already left out more pamphlets about it than you could hope to get your hands on, Clint." Steve sighed, "I still maintain that it might be Tony developing the symptoms."

"Eh, they're too close to PTSD to tell for sure, though." Clint murmured, then grinned. The expression only lasted a second, though, then he was looking down at Steve's pencil-thin legs because he didn't want to meet his eyes for his next question, "You treat each other right, the two of you?"

"I'd lay down my life for him, and he would for me. He takes better care of me than I could've ever asked for; and I like to think I take care of him..." Steve swallowed the thickness in his throat down, "that I take care of him like he's always needed to be taken care of."

"You probably love him more than he's ever been loved before, from what I've seen...what I've learned of Tony Stark." Clint agreed tightly, "You better be good to him, Steve. And he'd better be good to you. Pretty sure the one-armed bandit here'll help me kill him, and Nat would help me kill you. Just so we understand each other."

Steve grinned softly, warmed even though he was supposed to be being threatened, "So I've got you, Nat, _and_ Pepper to worry about? That seems unfair."

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure Pepper's also kind of on your side, though she may not actually help us kill him. My bet is she would probably push for beating sense into him with those very pointy, very deadly Iron Man-red stilettos he bought her for Christmas last year."

"That does, actually, make me feel better, if only because Pepper Potts might actually be more terrifying to me than Natasha is a lot of the time. When Pepper decided to do the threatening because Rhodey wouldn't, I don't think I've ever been more justifiably frightened in my life." Steve sat back, folding his hands over his stomach, "How 'bout you and Phil? Do you two treat each other right?"

The soft look on Clint's face told Steve more than any words ever could, "Phil and me are...constant."

"Steady, stable." Steve flicked his gaze over the archer and let his knowing smirk drop, consideration in his baby blues like he was about to go into a field of battle, "You ever want to get married? All jokes aside?"

Clint snorted, but the look in Steve's eyes was hard to shake and he didn't see a reason to try just yet, "I...honestly? A part of me would love to. Phil and I don't talk about it."

Steve's features crumpled, his mouth turning decidedly down, and Clint had to wonder how Tony managed to deal with that facial expression. "Why?"

"I'm a bad bet, Steve. And I don't want to put Phil in the position where the bad bet comes back to haunt us." Clint found himself saying the words without really meaning to, and the look only worsened. Visibly suppressing a wince, Clint stopped himself from shifting his weight, lest the tiny wheels that supported the table on which he perched completely give out under his weight. Steve crossed his arms over his chest, his features turning stormy as he found a foothold from which to make his stand and fight his fight.

"You are not a bad-"

"Steve? I'm not exactly a spring chicken. I've taken more bullets than a damn target, and I've fallen from heights that should have killed me, but I'm not about to retire: I'm not sure I could. Phil deserves not to have to take care of me, but he'd want me to grow old with him anyway. I'm not sure I could bear to let it happen, and I won't take him down with me. Not like that."

Steve's stomach swooped, the thoughts that had been haunting him more than usual of late more prevalent now than ever: That Tony wasn't a young man; that he lived a stressful life, and wouldn't give it up until it consumed him. To hear Clint lay his fears out from the other side, it made him want to scream in impotent frustration, because it broke his heart that he didn't have a way out, and it was becoming more and more likely that there wasn't one. "I want to marry Tony." Steve murmured, lips barely moving, numb to the argument that had been raging on between his heart and his head since he fell in love with Tony and realized that one day he'd lose him, "But when I think about asking him...I think about losing him. I think about whether or not it'd be worse, to be married to him. To have that stupid promise of growing old together, and to lose it to some idiot with too strong a death ray. Or if I could even handle it if I were to simply lose him to time. I think...I think he'd say yes? But I don't want to ask the question, because then he'd give me all the time he has, and I don't want it not to be long enough."

Clint blinked, frowning deeply as he regarded the Star-Spangled Man for once without a plan, "Steve, have you talked to Tony about this?"

Cunning shone in the blue eyes, and Clint respected Tony's ability to stand up for himself in the face of such earnestness and blatancy, "Have you talked to Phil?"

"Phil, at least, is aware of my thoughts on the matter, even if I won't let us talk about it." Clint shook his head, chuckling, "You know, Phil looks up to you still. He believes in the two of you: That you don't have a way to figure out how to be happy? It would rock his world. You made him believe in heroes; Tony made him believe they could still exist, and then the two of you together made him believe that it could _work_ between someone...someone steady like him, and someone who likes to fall from great heights like me."

Steve pinned him with a look, and the attempt at levity he was clearly going to make made Clint thankful he'd chosen Steve to talk to-if he'd ever had to talk to anyone about it, "I regularly jump from air planes sans chute, which isn't quite falling from great heights, but if I'm the steady one in this analogy, you need to rethink things."

Clint actually giggled, feeling a little light-headed that he was allowing this conversation, "You are, but I have to tell you: Phil does stupid shit like that of his very own. Don't fall for his upstanding agent routine: he's just as crazy as the rest of us."

"I don't doubt it." Steve laughed. He sat forward, dropping his voice like they were sharing a secret, "But you and I? We should both be brave."

"Yeah? Why? What good's it gonna do us, Cap? I'm still not gonna make it to my first grey, no matter what we try. What's more, I don't think I want to try." Steve flinched, and Clint shook his head, "I'm not...I'm not going to go suicidal, Steve. But I know the risks; I've been around more than long enough to know that even for good guys, our chances at a happy ending are so slim they may be non-existent. I know how long a shelf life I have left if I'm lucky, and how badly it'll hurt him if I'm not. And when it does come to it, I'm not gonna fight my time, because I've met the men who have, and I don't want to see myself degrade to a shadow of the man I've managed to become."

Steve's featured hardened like he was standing against Hydra again, "You'd risk-"

"I'm not about to pose a risk to anyone but me, Steve." Clint cut in smoothly, with a voice as steady as his hands, and Steve had to admire it, "I won't let myself become a risk to anyone else: that's the point."

"Clint-"

"Cap, I've peaked. There's no going up from here; only a long, steady descent into an abyss that I do not want to deal with. You and Tony could work out; you could end up in a superhero retirement community with a dog to play with the weird robotic arm you seem to love just as much as he does. But for all the risks I take on the regular, I don't want to take the risk that I'll lose bits of myself until there is nothing left at all. And I wouldn't want Phil to have to go through that with me." Clint sat forwards, "There's not much use dreaming about everything turning out to be a happily ever after, Cap; that's not how things go in this line of work."

"So we both get to break our own hearts? Never let the people we love know that we broke them so that we could stay?"

"You wanna talk to Tony; do it. I know my story arc-but you two could either be the best or the worst thing to ever happen to each other yet. And the promises I've made to myself for Phil? Those are enough for me; those are my vows. I'd love to be able to give him more, but...I've given him all I have, and I have to live with the fact that it's not ever gonna enough to be everything he deserves. That I'm too much of a bastard to let him go even though he deserves so much more." Holding his gaze for a long moment, Clint pulled on the mask of good humour and carefree attitude. Lips twitching, Clint looked down at his watch, "Aaaand, that concludes this episode of honesty hour: you have a very important date, Cap. Let's not be late."


	9. Chapter 9

Steve woke up with his face pressed into Jane Foster's sweatpant-clad thigh, the thunderous snores telling him that Thor was somewhere nearby, and the tiny squeaks of unconscious giggles telling him Darcy wasn't far off, either. Jane, the quiet sleeper of their little collective, was more prone to drooling her way through dreamland, but Steve was far enough away from the splash-zone that he knew he was safe. Well, as safe as he could be with an astonishingly bad headache and something that tasted like stale cotton candy in the back of his throat. "Oh, I should not have agreed to go to Asgard."

There was a distinctly girlish giggle that did not belong to Darcy, but Clint, and Steve groaned from the depths of his soul. "How are you awake?" Tony's whine came from too far off for Steve's liking, but trying to convince himself to sit up was a bad idea. "Seriously, you let Clint and Natasha talk you into trying to walk carrying Darcy, Jane, and Bruce. Thankfully, Thor was waiting to catch the girls if they needed it, and then Bruce Hulked out in affrontery that he'd only catch the girls, so I have a wonderful shot of Hulk hugging your left leg. That was just the last of your night of debauchery and idiotic ideas produced by Clint Barton, I would like to add. That was the _last_ of the damn madness: You don't want to get me started on the first and the middle bits of insanity. And you are not allowed to make any more passes at me while you are drunk, because I can't accept when you are drunk. Also, the recreation of our actual first kiss-not the one you count as our first kiss-was so very inspired: I'm pretty sure Fandral and Volstagg were not kidding about writing an epic poem to our love." Steve groaned again, and Tony's warm chuckle had moved closer, his even warmer hands gentle for all their rough edges.

"That kiss I was too drunk to remember clearly was not our first kiss. The one when you were too tired to kiss back properly was our first kiss." Steve replied with a voice that sounded like he'd gargled gravel, and Tony scoffed, pulling gently at his arm.

"You're too big to move now, Cap; little help would be nice."

"Hmm?"

"We went to Asgard so I could get the Norse god of the Sun to help me get access to what basically amounted to liquid sunlight in order to use it to activate the serum. And it worked: I am a genius among men. C'mon, Capslock; up'n'at'em."

Steve struggled upright without disturbing Jane where she was slumped against Thor who seemed to be using Darcy as both a pillow and a teddy bear, but the second he was upright, he was staggering, so Tony was under his arm in a heartbeat, bearing him up and walking him towards the neatly made cot that Phil Coulson seemed to have been the previous resident of. Coulson was now wrangling both Natasha and Clint- who may or may not have both still been unconscious even though they started walking towards the elevator seemingly of their own volition-from the couch. "Why are we in the lab?"

"Because I put you all to bed, and then you seemed to suddenly decide it was bonding time."

"Oh god, we were all drunk and you ended up taking care of us. I am so fucking sorry, Tony." Steve let himself crumple into the cot, and the canvas and steel snapped and broke under the sudden application of his weight. Steve blinked from where he'd landed, then said more out of reflex than actual pain, "Ow."

Tony made a sound that could only be described as a snork, and Steve burst into a kind of hysterical, unwilling laughter that Tony seemed to be biting himself to try to stop from joining. "Steve, love of my life; joy of my world; forgive me, but that was funny."

"Yes, it was, I'm laughing, too..." Steve replied, reaching forward and wrapping his arms around Tony's knees. "Can we just...go upstairs to bed? Please?"

"Of course."

"Can we do it without me having to actually let go of you or move at all?"

"Mmm, not with my current progress on teleportation technology, no. I could work on it, but...it can be messy."

"Hm? Oh, right; the _Galaxy Quest_ Pig Postulation." Steve was fairly sure he was mumbling incoherently at this point, but Tony's hand carded into his hair anyway, and he relaxed into the touch.

"Give it...about six more minutes and you'll feel better-though if you let me go long enough to get you a cup of coffee, it could be four." Steve rocked into his hold, and Tony laughed lightly, placating. "Okay, okay. You know this rodeo, too; Asgardian booze hits you hard, and sticks with you for a while, but the side-effects only take a few minutes for the serum to get out of your system."

"Let me stay on the floor for a few minutes?"

"However long you want."

"I like hugging you." Steve told his kneecaps, and Tony chuckled, fingers pressing into his scalp in a massage, and it was this very thing that had taught Steve how much Tony loved to have that done to him. "I'd rather be hugging your top half, but you are too old for conscious floor-sitting."

Tony scoffed, slightly insulted, and Steve laughed as he tried to knee him in the shoulder. "If you're going to call me old, at least do it to my face, Rogers. And I end up on the floor more often than not when it comes to physical affection and you."

Steve snorted, "That was terrible. Where is Bruce? He should be helping me tell you how terrible that was."

"He always recovers the fastest, babe. He went up to bed, like the smarticle he is."

"Stop impugning my intelligence, Stark. If we leave Thor and the others down here, Dummy might dust them, and that never ends well."

"Sure that's why you want to hang out down here." Tony laughed, voice throaty, and Steve hugged his legs tighter, pressing his face into Tony's thigh. "Protecting the innocent from my bot, such an upstanding citizen."

"Behaviour befitting a national icon." Steve murmured with a grin, and knew that Tony shook his head at that. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Coffee." The reply just about came before the question, and Steve chuckled. "But I'm assuming you also want to ply me with real food stuffs?"

"That would be correct, yes. You need to eat more."

"I eat."

"When I trick you into eating or coerce you out of the lab."

"Coercion works for you." Tony murmured, "I want...I don't know what I want for breakfast." Tony shrugged, and Steve hummed in the back of his throat, "But breakfast making does require you to be upright, so let's start there." Steve whined, but released Tony's legs, taking his hands when Tony offered them and heaving himself upright, happy when his head didn't immediately start spinning once successfully vertical, "Hey, there, soldier." Tony murmured, voice deep and seductive, and Steve let himself fall into kissing Tony hot, hard and long.

"I came on to you again last night, huh?"

Tony laughed, cheeks and ears flushed as Steve groped him, "Yes, you did."

"I'd tell you you didn't have to turn me down, but we've had that conversation before. I'd rather have a different kind of conversation after breakfast...?" Looking up at Tony from under his lashes, Steve's teasing grin twitched at his lips as he draped Tony over his front with a quick yank of the grip on his hips.

"You're the worst." Tony laughed, tucking his face into Steve's neck, "The absolute worst."

"Kiss me." Steve chuckled, and Tony immediately acquiesced, kissing him lazy and languid as Thor, Jane, and Darcy started to stir behind them. Steve wondered, idly, if he should be concerned that he could differentiate Darcy's sleeping giggles from her waking ones. "Good morning, all." He greeted, voice husky and soft and his cheeks and ears were red, they had to be.

"Shield-brothers Steve and Anthony!" Thor's booming greeting caused both women to groan in deference to their hangovers. "Your love is deep and abiding and shall have odes written as a testament to its endurance and power."

"How is it that you aren't Steven, but I'm Anthony?" Tony breathed, and Steve grinned, shrugging fluidly before he pecked a kiss to Tony's forehead and released most of his hold on him. "You should go start the breakfast dance, my love."

"Come dance with me." Steve urged softly, grinning. "Let's show Nat and Clint how it's done." With a devilish grin, Steve wrapped their fingers together, tugging slightly like an eager kid trying to pull a reluctant friend into trouble. Tony shot him a look, though he couldn't stop the smile, and brought Steve's fingers to his lips, kissing his knuckles with a reverence that made Steve want to skip the dance and fall into bed.

"I know how to cook disappointment omelettes and not much else, love."

Steve hummed, smiling coyly, "I've heard of your disappointment omelettes. I think we can turn your disappointment omelettes into contentment frittatas." Tony's mouth twisted into an unwilling sort of amusement.

"You challenging me, Rogers?"

"Well, if you think you can't handle it..." Steve murmured lowly, but Darcy still made a noise of high-pitched, incoherent joy that might've made Steve's ears bleed if he'd been sitting as close to her as Thor was.

Tony's laughter was winning out, his head slowly starting to shake as well as his shoulders, because he was caving to laughing at the ridiculousness, and Steve knew he didn't have to press his advantage any further. "God, that's bad."

"I know, it feels like something you might've said." Steve chuckled, the curl of his mouth catching Tony's gaze, which turned hungry in seconds. "Thor, don't try making coffee down here. Even Jane won't be able to drink the rocket fuel Tony keeps for the coffee maker down here."

Tony giggled slightly, "You have come so far in the care and keeping of scientists. I'm so proud."

Steve rolled his eyes, shaking his head at Darcy, who grinned back hugely. Holding out one hand with an imperious air, Darcy let Tony pull her to her feet, wobbling slightly into the solid wall of Thor as he rose and steadied Jane behind her. "I thought Coulson decreed no more Asgardian booze for us measly mortals." She murmured somewhat muzzily, and Tony chuckled.

"It's not like he had much choice once the Warriors Three challenged Nat and Clint to a drinking game." Tony sighed, taking Darcy's arm through his and leading her to the elevators while Thor did his best to preserve Jane's dignity by not outright carrying her even though she essentially needed to use him as a crutch. Steve slid in on her other side, and Jane's head fell to his bicep, her smile absent as she looked up at him from under her curtain of hair.

"You're cute." She declared, though thankfully not loudly enough for Tony to hear over Darcy's babbling about Dummy's proficiency at ping-pong, which was something Steve wanted to pipe up and take credit for. "You're both so cute. He gets all melty when you pay attention to him."

Steve's brows flew up, but he didn't say what was on the tip of his tongue: that it was him that melted when Tony so much as glanced his way; that, when he was being honest with himself, he felt a little starved for Tony's attention sometimes. He knew it was a little irrational; he got more of Tony Stark than anyone ever had before, or could dare to hope for, simply because he sat in the workshop and was allowed to teach Dummy ping-pong while Tony took apart a car engine and argued the thermodynamics of actually achieving warp speed with JARVIS. He'd learned when they were just friends that this was something no one else had ever done with Tony Stark: that the most Tony could hope for was a grudging acceptance of the apparent madness that was that workshop, even from Pepper and Rhodey. No one ever wanted to be around him enough to join him for even ten minutes in his favourite place in the world; and Tony had admitted that only after he'd found Steve sacked out on the couch when Tony had been out of town just after they'd finally gotten together. Steve had not only wanted to be near him, even when he wasn't there, it was somewhere he'd go in order to feel close to Tony; he'd come to love the bots, and make his own rhythm in the madness, even if a part of that was a slightly lowered volume level on Tony's music. It had explained a lot when Tony had finally told him how odd it was for someone to be with him in the workshop; Steve had worried for a while that Tony's looks of confusion had really been suspicion, that he was supposed to be working on something top-secret, and Steve's presence was a threat to the security of the thing. JARVIS had assured him that that wasn't the case, and Steve had accepted it, though a little uneasily. It was one of those moments of accidental candour that finally put the suspicion of being suspected of spying to rest: Tony had fallen asleep at his workbench, and in trying to gently herd him into a more comfortable place to crash, he'd gotten Tony into the space between sleeping and awake where Tony looked at him like he was the biggest puzzle Tony had ever seen, mumbling the words, "You're here. Why are you still here with me?"

At first, Steve had thought Tony had meant that he'd thought Steve had been there the whole time instead of coming down to find Tony out cold and drooling slightly onto his workbench. But Tony was not the kind of man to do that; Tony was absent-minded when he was in a project, but he was just as spatially aware as Clint was. Steve hadn't wanted to think of what would make Tony expect him to leave. He didn't want to be disappointed in every person who'd come into Tony's life before.

"Why can't I have coffee?" Jane asked hazily, pulling Steve out of his reminiscences, and not a moment too soon.

"Because it could probably corrode the cups if it was ever left in one long enough to try." Steve told her, in laughing sincerity. Her eyes widened, caught in the familiar balance of 'holy god, no' and 'let's experiment'. "We'll make you some when we get upstairs to the more humane coffee."

Jane pouted, but the façade fell almost immediately. Jane rocked out of the scaffolding of Steve and Thor as they reached the elevators, tucking her face into Darcy's hair. "Hi, cuddle monster. Are you still drunk?" Tony asked, and Jane mumbled incoherently, muffled into Darcy's neck.

"She totally is, and I don't know how she still is, I'm not going to question it." Darcy translated, the wry twist of her mouth and the laughter in her eyes making Tony laugh. "But I thought Steve had a self-imposed ban on Asgardian alcohol."

"I do, but Volstagg is a hard man to say no to." Steve murmured, shaking his head.

"His ability to talk a man into doing the most ill-conceived of battles is one of his most underestimated gifts." Thor agreed, slapping Steve on the back and sending him rocking on his heels.

"I don't mind drunk Steve." Tony murmured, his smile coy as he leaned against the wall of the elevator next to the Darcy-Jane entanglement. "You're a very affectionate drunk."

Steve huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head at Tony's waggling eyebrows. "I'm affectionate while sober, too!" The protest had Jane giggling, and Darcy seemed to actually be biting her own laughter back.

"You're a different kind of affectionate when sober, babe. You tend to be a little more blatant about what you want when on the good stuff."

"Ah, more blatant..." Steve took a measured step into Tony's personal space, mischief written all over his face as that pressed Tony back against the wall. "I can work on that."

"Are you still drunk, too?" Tony laughed, putting his hands on Steve's biceps and planting his weight against the wall of the elevator.

"Definitely not." Thor chimed in.

Tony chuckled, shaking his head at the tell-tale blush riding Steve's ears and cheeks. Tony pulled him in, ducked his head down against Tony's collarbone as the elevator dinged their arrival and Darcy ran herd over Jane to get her stumbling towards the group kitchen. "You're unfairly sexy, Rogers. You should really try to work on that. A man can only take so much of being toyed with before he falls to his knees and starts humping your leg."

"I am still so bad at flirting, though. I need practice." Steve sighed as if he were disappointed in himself, his grip on Tony's hips tightening for a moment before he pulled himself away, towing Tony along as he headed out of the elevator towards the kitchen to join the attempts Darcy was making to get Jane to drink something other than coffee to stem the headache that accompanied sobering from Asgardian alcohol: a bright, white-hot flash of pain that had made Steve think for a moment he'd fallen into the Red Skull's hands and everything else had been some kind of hallucination the first time he'd had the displeasure of experiencing it. He'd been unconscious for this one and was glad of that down to his bones.

"I'm enough of a flirt for the both of us, darling." Tony replied, moving to shoo Thor away from the electric appliances. "Besides, who the hell do you need to flirt with? Certainly not me and if I'm not enough man for you, I'll cry into Pepper's hair and she'll kill you for my having ruined it."

"You don't think we need to still flirt with each other? Keep the magic alive?" A challenge was written in Steve's eyebrows, and Tony turned to him, hands on hips, amusement glinting in his eyes.

"I doubt our magic has a remotely short shelf-life, Steve. I'm going to keep loving you, just like this, for decades." Tony told him this matter-of-factly as he moved through the familiar flow of preparing their coffees. Not just his and Steve's, but Thor, Jane, and Darcy's as well, and even though Tony would not be able to tell them what they liked in their coffees when asked outright, it was a rote part of him, because he was always the one who would find coffee or food or something warm and comforting in the madness of the aftermath. Darcy was watching him with a bald wish in her eyes, and Steve knew that the unfaltering sincerity in Tony's words was something that anyone who didn't have someone like him would yearn and ache for. "Even if we crashed and burned and hated each other, I would love you anyway."

Steve swallowed, the urge to pull Tony into him and hide him away from a world in which that could ever happen tamped down as he watched Tony pour an inordinate amount of sugar into Darcy's favourite coffee cup. Darcy and Jane were looking away, as if this moment, when they weren't even touching, was something intimate enough to feel intrusive just being in its presence. Tony moseyed over to him, handing him the coffee cup and lingering close to him, dark eyes soft and warm in a way that even the steaming cup in his hands couldn't compare to. Steve felt drawn to him like a sunflower to the summer glow, and he felt a wave of gratefulness as Tony let Steve's fingers slide between his, holding his hand, even if it was old-fashioned; even if it was silly.

"Breakfast, then bed?" Tony offered, "You didn't get much sleep last night, and I'd be willing to go for a nap."

Steve grinned, squeezing Tony's hand in his and ducking his head in a nod, his heart full when Tony's eyes grew even warmer, the laughter in them beautifully bright. It was times like these that Steve could feel the words clambering over his tongue, trying to escape into the open air, the question of if Tony would marry him expanding wings through his chest until it was all he could do not to make sure he wasn't begging that question out loud.

"Pancakes?" Jane suggested, basically bursting upright from her nest she'd hid into of Darcy's collarbone, then swaying slightly despite the fact she was sitting down and ultimately subsiding back into Darcy's hair.

Steve snorted his laughter, "Sure. I can do pancakes."

Pecking a promise to the very corner of Tony's mouth, Steve moved to start the familiar choreography of the morning rituals, even if the rituals necessary to battle an Asgardian hangover weren't quite felt out as fully as any of the mere mortals may have wanted. His rules on Asgardian alcohol were blanket for all of his team, and he wasn't sure how everyone else had managed to get a hold of the illicit liquor, but Steve had a suspicion it had something to do with Darcy and Clint, who were an unholy combination when it came to Earthly alcohol-particularly when that alcohol was tequila. The other Avengers and their various sundry people had made some changes to account for Tony's recovery from alcoholism, but Tony's sobriety seemed to be easier, and the others weren't as diligent as Steve was when it came to keeping themselves from proverbially rubbing Tony's nose in it. Steve was more than a little annoyed that he'd ended up drunken, especially considering Tony had been with him, and had been there solely to take care of Steve. He knew that Tony didn't mind; didn't expect anyone to stop drinking because it was hard for him to stop, but he also wanted to support the fight Tony was undertaking in doing it, in any way that he could support it.

"What's the over-under on Clint and Nat emerging to the smell of bacon?" Darcy asked as Tony came to stand on Jane's other side while Thor tried to help Steve in the kitchen-trying to learn how to cook as much as he could in order to prove to Jane that he was a worthy man of her affections; a notion of chivalry and care that Steve hadn't ever thought of, but ultimately approved whole-heartedly.

"Eh, the two of you tried to do keg stands on Odin's most potent mead: You're lucky you're alive, so I'll put twenty on Clint's ability to somehow know when bacon hits a frying pan." Steve choked on a laugh, shaking his head as he got down his favourite mixing bowl and retrieved all the detritus necessary to cooking pancakes and bacon and keeping the bacon out of anyone's mouth before it was actually breakfast time. If he entrusted Thor with the task of keeping them safe, he had a better chance of actually ending up with most, if not all, of the bacon. "Steve was successful in doing a keg stand, though, and Natasha has photographic evidence of all of this."

Steve froze, shooting a look of horror at Darcy as she burst out laughing, absently patting Jane's hair while she did. "Please tell me you're not toying with him. I need photos of Clint failing to be acrobatic to be real and accessible if I bribe Pepper enough to get me those photos."

Tony reached into his pocket, handing her his phone once he'd unlocked it, and Darcy's look of sheer joy was almost fear-inducing. "I've already had them sent to you, Darce." Tony murmured gently, his grin soft but twisted.

"How did you get them from Natasha in the first place?"

"Hogun was helping me practice pickpocketing while the Lady Sif and Natasha arm-wrestled." Tony shrugged. "Why did you have a good-sequinned man's thong stuffed into your pocket, by the way? When I asked you last night, you'd only grin maniacally and rub your hands together like you were plotting evil."

"What makes you think it's not better for you that you don't know?"

"I kind of want in on some evil, but I'd like to know what I'm getting into first; Pepper's lectures may actually be starting to get through to me."

Darcy laughed, shaking her head, "Sacrilege, Tony! You, having a voice of reason?!"

"I know, it feels weird. I don't entirely trust it." Tony wrinkled his nose, but his grin couldn't be stopped. "C'mon, let me in."

Steve let the easy camaraderie wash over him, letting the familiar rhythm of the kitchen pull him like a current. Thor opened the bacon packages while he beat the pancake batter, and Jane's quiet whimper of pain when the Asgardian hangover flashed through her and she collapsed face-first into the counter, pitiful crying noises muffled between the puddle of her hair and the marble. "Oh, honey..." Tony pouted in solidarity, reaching over to gently rest his hand on the back of her head like he could take away her pain. He'd been with Steve when Steve had first suffered the shot of pain had nearly given him a nosebleed, and had the utmost empathy for each victim of that particular horror. Tony slipped between Thor and he, headed for the freezer and grabbing out a dampened cloth, sliding it between Jane's head and the marble as Darcy lifted Jane's head almost absently, gently letting it back down and petting her hair. Jane whimpered in thanks, and Tony patted the puddle of hair in such a way that the gesture wouldn't even put pressure on her head in periphery. Darcy stuck her tongue out at Tony playfully, and he pulled a face in return, starting a competition that had Steve laughing softly to himself, the two of them being maddeningly childish and so like them that the familiar feeling of family made it hard for him to breathe for having been without it so violently torn from that feeling of family, even if the Commandos hadn't been quite as close a family as this one, especially after Bucky had fallen.

Steve had to hope, even if it was abstractly, that this family could be made to be Bucky's, too, eventually. As Coulson slipped quietly in on Jane's other side, and Clint loudly schlepped into a pathetic pile of human at the table, Steve caught sight of both Natasha and Coulson pulling faces to mock Darcy and Tony just before she joined them and drew anyone else's attention.

"Where's Pepper?" The pile of Clint groaned.

"She is safely far away from here." Tony answered, his voice thick with laughter at Clint's evident pain. "She opted out of an Asgardian visit; she's busy today."

"Doin' what?" Clint asked, turning his head so he was no longer speaking into the table.

"Knowing her, disembowelling an idiot who was trying to complete a hostile takeover without us noticing."

Natasha froze, her gaze sharp on Tony, "This is not a hypothetical, is it?"

Tony paused, regarding her as if weighing the likelihoods of his survival, "Not so much, no. We found out last week."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Natasha's voice was icy, and yet her green eyes burned.

"I asked him not to." Phil spoke up immediately, his own anger at Tony written plainly on his face. "And I believe I asked you to continue not to say anything."

Tony shrugged, "Yeah, don't care. They ought to know."

Phil sighed softly, and his mouth drew in, face grave. "After AIM's gambit to take Steve off the proverbial chessboard, Stark Industries had a sudden and harsh attack on their holdings that traces back to Hammer Tech, even though Hammer is mortgaged to the hilt and doesn't have two pennies to rub together-"

"Someone's backing him." Natasha filled in, gaze flicking back and forth between them. "And it's no coincidence that Pepper had an attempt made on her life, was it?"

Phil shook his head, "Current theory dictates that AIM has teamed up not only with Hammer, but has sured up ties with the Maggia and may be in bed with HYDRA. None of them will be pleased that Pepper has put down their play for SI, but-"

"It's still a fucking coalition of evil." Clint growled, looking like warmed over hell, just as angry as Natasha seemed to be. "And whose good idea was it not to fucking tell us?"

"Oh, it goes further than that..." Bruce informed them, voice choked in a way that drew all attention to him instantly.

In his loose grip, his phone seemed to have been forgotten; his eyes a muddied green-brown and his skin a pallor that very few had ever seen as he looked over the gathering of this family they had made for themselves with a grit of anger and shock in equal measure warring for control. Tony was the first to pull out of the trance seeing Bruce in this state had all of them in, Jane just a second later; both going for their own phones, and freezing almost in unison just a few seconds later. "That son of a cock-loving whore." Tony growled like the roll of a thunderstorm taking over the skies.

Jane pressed her phone to her ear, her dark eyes desperate and pained as she looked from the irate Tony to the quietly shocked Bruce. "What happened?" Steve asked quietly, coming to stand at Bruce's side.

"The former General Ross." Tony spat the name like it was a curse, and Steve knew how accurate that really was. He'd only met the disgraced excuse for an Army general once, and it had been enough to make his fists ache with want to punch the man out. Tony handed Steve his phone without comment, and took Bruce's carefully out of his hand, urging him to sit before crouching in front of him, "Alright, big guy, you with me?" Tony asked, eyes steady as he stared down the potential for destruction wrapped in Bruce's shaken core. "Jane?"

"I'm calling her research assistant..." Jane muttered quietly, and Natasha and Clint threw each other a silent look that spoke encyclopedically before they both moved as one to slip out.

"This is what's gonna go down, Brucey bear," Tony's voice was steady, even if it was barely more than a whisper, "we're going to get to Betty whether Ross likes it or not; we're going to wipe the fucking floor with him, and then I'm going to publicly release the file I've been saving for just this occasion, just to put a smile back on that pretty mouth."

As Tony talked, the green seeped out of Bruce's eyes, replaced with an expectant amusement that had Tony grinning like the walking pile of trouble he was. Without another word, Tony offered Bruce his hand, and Bruce's palm clapped into his with a promise that Tony would pick him up, no matter what made him fall.


	10. Chapter 10

The steady, rhythmic thump of his feet against the asphalt paired against the easy pulse in his chest, and the quiet ease with which he was breathing, even sprinting, as he was, through the length of a marathon. Steve pulled in a deep breath of the cool air of DC, "On your left." The runner he was passing didn't even have time to turn his head to see Steve coming, really, and Steve huffed a laugh at the small 'whoa' that was breathed out as he raced past. It wasn't long before he was making another circuit, passing the same lone runner, "On your left." The usually tourist-laden monuments were deserted this early in the morning, and though part of him relished the chance to do something as simple as go for this run in this town, Steve couldn't help wishing he were home.

"Don't say it! Don't you say it! C'mon!" The runner yelled, trying to put on a burst of speed like he could outrun Steve, and Steve did not even change pace, overtaking him easily.

"On your left!" When Steve caught up to him after that lap, he was collapsed against a tree, clutching his chest and dripping with sweat. "Need a medic?"

"Nah, a new set of lungs." The runner replied looking up at him with a grin. "Dude, you just ran like thirteen miles in thirty minutes."

"Guess I got a late start." Steve was grinning as he said it, sensing a smartass.

The runner took the bait, "Really? You should be ashamed of yourself. Go take another lap," he looked away for a second, panting slightly still, then looked back, "didja just take it? 'Cause I assume you just took it."

"What unit you with?" Steve asked, nodding to his sweatshirt and the insignia on his chest.

"58th pararescue, but now I'm working down at the VA." He reached up, and Steve immediately stooped to grab his hand and help haul him up, "Sam Wilson."

"Steve Rogers."

"Yeah, I kinda put that together." Sam replied, standing but still doubled over for a minute before he could fully straighten up. "Must've freaked you out, comin' home after the whole defrosting thing."

There was something about Sam. Something subtle but easy that told Steve that he was someone Steve could choose to talk to, or not to talk to, and Sam would understand. For as far as he'd come, and as much as he'd changed, Steve still didn't like talking about it, "Took some getting used to. It was good to meet you, Sam." He went to walk away, but Sam took a couple steps to shadow his, and when Steve turned back, the concern in Sam's brow was enough to give him pause.

"It's the bed." Sam told him, "You're not used to it; I know you live up at Stark Tower in the lap of luxury, but the bed here...it's too soft, isn't it? When I was over there, I'd sleep on the ground and use rocks for pillows like a cave man. And I'd be willing to bet Tony Stark knows a little something about the bed being too soft after you come home."

"It's like lying on a marshmallow, like I'm gonna sink right to the floor." Steve agreed, nodding. "How long?"

"Two tours." Sam shrugged, looking him up and down, "Bet you miss the good ol' days."

Steve knew this particular manoeuvre when it came to mental health professionals and councillors, and he decided he could take the bait at least a little, "Well, it's not all bad. Food's a lot better: we used to boil everything; no polio's good; and the internet, so helpful. I've been reading that, trying to catch up."

Sam was grinning at him, but he adjusted his stance, features pulling for a moment as he tried to remember, "Marvin Gaye, 1972, the Trouble Man soundtrack. Everything you missed, jammed into one album."

Steve grinned back, nodding, "I'll put it on the list." He murmured, knowing that the phone in his pocket that uplinked to JARVIS had probably already done it for him, but the damn thing vibrated as if it knew he was thinking of it, and Steve's brow furrowed as he pulled it out, checking the message from Natasha. "Alright, Sam; duty calls." He reached forward to shake the man's hand, nodding to him, "Thanks for the run...if that's what you wanna call running."

"Oh, that's how it is?" Sam laughed.

"That's how it is." Steve laughed back.

"Any time you wanna stop by the VA, make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know." The roaring of the car he was pretty sure Natasha had stolen from Tony in order to make him suffer for not telling them about the hostile takeover was drawing near as Steve moseyed to the curb backwards.

"I'll keep that in mind." Steve nodded.

The car was sleek and black and something he would have immediately thought Natasha would scoff at, because it was too flashy by half, but she made it suit her, rolling down a window, "Hey, fellas. Either of you know the way to the Smithsonian? I'm here to pick up a fossil."

"That's hilarious." Steve muttered, getting in.

Sam was slightly crouched to look in the window of the car, nodding to Natasha, "How you doin'?"

She returned his gaze without a hint of inflection, "Hey."

Steve squinted back out, "Can't run everywhere."

"No, you cannot." Sam replied, Natasha's revving of the engine nearly drowning him out before she pulled out into traffic.

"Remember the time I showed you the video of Tony calling the senator trying to take the suit an assclown?" Natasha asked, driving smoothly and sedately instead of like she was in a warzone, thankfully.

"Yes..." Steve muttered, voice thick with suspicion.

"He and Ross are thick as thieves. Tony's been elbows-deep in his bank records, too, and it looks like Agent Sitwell has been meeting with Senator Assclown on the down-low, but it's sure as shit not for SHIELD."

Steve shot her a look, "Why do I feel like this is a symptom of a deeper issue?"

"Because you're smart." She told him, demur, and Steve felt a muscle in his jaw start to twitch. "You okay, though? You took off really early. Clint was whining." Steve shook his head, sighing slightly, and Natasha looked at him for a long moment as they were stopped at a red. "You can't sleep, can you?"

"No. I can't." Steve admitted, "But don't tell Tony. Not with everything else."

Natasha and Steve had been sent to DC to keep fingers on the pulse of SHIELD headquarters while Bruce, Tony, and Clint remained in New York; Thor and Coulson with Jane, Darcy, Betty, Pepper, and Happy Hogan safely in Asgard while they dug into just how AIM could have laid hands on the information necessary to come up with an idea of how to reverse the serum, Pepper could have been targeted, and Betty's work not only stolen, but the woman herself very nearly kidnapped by her own father, and Betty's plea for help just barely making it in time for them to stop it happening. The former General had declared war against the Avengers politically, his new position as the secretary of state giving him the chance to truly label them as a threat to society. Tony was the one the were targeting most, and his relationship with Steve was painting a target on Steve's back as well, but when Steve had cornered him in their bedroom, Tony had shocked him: asking if he wanted to fight it, or if he wanted them to fall in line. It hadn't been a question to Steve, but he'd gotten a sense that there was something nagging at Tony's mind; something he couldn't quite shake.

They'd sat, just the two of them, and talked about it. Talked about Tony's fatigue, and Steve sometimes feeling like they were never gaining any ground, and what ground they had was crumbling; talked about Tony wanting to be able to trust SHIELD, and their mutual inability to think that that was a good idea. Tony was tired of fighting tooth and nail to put himself and those he loved in danger by fighting, but he was far too stubborn to give it up, and they both knew that. He was tired of threats to SI, and tired of the nightmares there was nothing either of them could do to stop. Steve ached for knowing that Tony wanted so badly to believe in his government, in his people, that he'd be willing to bow to the rules they laid down. Not because it was a sign that Tony was in any way maturing, but because it was a sign that Tony, who had looked him dead in the eye on that Helicarrier and challenged him to dig deeper himself, who had told him freely that he was scared to put his faith in anyone but himself, was so worn down by this fight they'd undertaken that he didn't want to dig any deeper, and couldn't bring himself to push back on his own. Had he and Steve not been able to sit and talk like that; if they weren't close enough that Tony would sit and actually say the things that he needed to say to him-if he wasn't able to read Tony well enough to know how to read between the furrows outlining Tony's mouth and the tiny line worried between his brows, then Steve could only draw up imaginings of nightmares, because he was sure that there was no good way they could go through this alone.

Together, Steve knew that Tony would be able to fight until he won, because even if there was no way Tony Stark could or would fight for himself; Tony would fight to the death for anyone in his corner, and Tony was difficult to kill.

For as much as Steve loved that tenacity, he was beginning to worry about the toll it was taking. This crusade was weighing on them all; Clint working to keep an eye on Tony and Bruce-which translated, Clint admitted shortly after Natasha started commenting on things she honestly couldn't have known, to watching Steve's back to keep Tony from wearing himself even thinner to do it himself. They were all starting to run a little ragged: all of them split up for nearly a month, scattered like pieces over a chess board just waiting for the order to strike. Tony had done some interesting footwork to get himself in a position to stand against the cry for blood, and now they balanced like a rollercoaster trolley on the top of the highest drop, stalled out to draw out that teeth-clenching moment of anticipation; that tension that sent most people screaming. Steve ached to be home with Tony; hated following SHIELD's lead without his team at his back. He didn't trust them, despite Peggy's hand in its creation; he knew that she wouldn't want him to put that aside on her account anyway, so he didn't force it. The only one he trusted from SHIELD was Phil, who he believed in more than he could explain, simply because the man was so good and so steadfast.

"Steve, we need you thinking clear here." Natasha told him, voice soft and smooth, "You can't be running on empty. Tony needs you to be thinking clearly, too. He loves you and he needs you. You know this already. He's tired, we all are; if you weren't asking him to stand with you, I'm not sure he would anymore. This fight is harder than our others, Steve, because it's against the people who created us in the first place; and none of us can stand against it alone. Not and win."

"You almost sound like you're feeling the same thing he is."

Natasha's mouth turned down at the corners, "I liked it better when I thought I knew whose lies I was telling. SHIELD being in bed with senator assclown makes me worried that I've lost sight of who it was I'm working for."

"Phil Coulson." Steve answered, because when it came down to it, they would all swear allegiance to the man. He'd died to bring them together, and once Tony had figured out a way to bring him back, he'd stepped in when Fury had started in-roads to separate them into their component parts and told him in no uncertain terms that if he'd had to die to get them a team, they were damned well staying a team. "He won't be happy to hear about Sitwell and Assclown either, and if I were Fury, I'd fear him more than the giant green rage monster, tin man, super soldier, god, assassin, and marksman that will come knocking on his door."

Natasha's mouth twisted, her eyes narrowing as she entered into hostile negotiations with an idiot on a Ducati that was not letting her change lanes. "What if Fury doesn't actually know?"

"I'd ask if you were impugning his spy abilities, but you're not thinking that this has anything to do with the spy games, are you?"

"No. The best way for this to have happened would be if he'd come into the middle of it while it was already established; having it there before Fury got near it would be the only way to get it past him."

"How many directors of SHIELD have there been?"

"Three. But you're still thinking too grandly; for this to work, the director of SHIELD in all its iterations can't have known that there was something beneath the surface." Natasha cut her gaze over to him, her mouth pursing, "And if it's been corrupted, then it'll be an old one."

"HYDRA," Steve breathed, his fist clenching.

"You know as well as anyone, Steve; they may have been terrible men, but they were fabulous scientists." Steve did know; Tony had once asked him, while high off his ass off of Medical-prescribed painkillers that his words slurred, if it was wrong of him to be thankful for the advances when they came from such evil. Steve hadn't known how to answer him, so he hadn't, getting him back into bed, and tucking him in even though they hadn't started their love affair just yet. He'd looked through the advances made himself after that, and wrestled with himself over whether or not he could reconcile it, either. "If HYDRA scientists were in SHIELD from its inception, then it would have been poured into the foundations, and could safely grow, like a tree rotting from the inside out. There would be nothing we'd be able to see amiss, and they would've been smart enough to know who and how to recruit."

Steve felt his jaw ache and he realized he was clenching his teeth so hard that he was worried the joint would crack when he released the pressure, but his fingernails were very nearly scoring the half-moon crescents into his palms. "So you're saying that SHIELD has always been corrupt."

"It's not like I want to." Natasha finally said after a long moment, her mouth decidedly turned down, "I'd like to think that I haven't been selling lies for crazed Nazis."

"Even if you have been, it's not like it's your fault, Nat." Steve had more strength in his voice than he'd thought he would have, "Put yourself in my shoes: I've been working SHIELD for the last three years, so if it turns out to be HYDRA-operated..." Steve trailed off, and Natasha shook her head softly.

"You know, we may have another barrel of monkeys to deal with here, Steve." Natasha told him softly, "If SHIELD realizes that we're onto the connection with HYDRA, Bucky may not be safe in their Medical. Or we may not be safe from him."

As if on the wings of that thought, Steve's eyes widened in reaction to the scene unfolding before him; a vehicle looking a little too much like a troop transport slowed without any indication why, the Ducati cutting them off summarily, causing Natasha to swerve in order to miss hitting the man as the troop transport's back doors burst open, and Steve grabbed the wheel, jerking it in such a way that the rubber burned against the asphalt, sending it sliding into the line of oncoming traffic in a hundred-and-eighty degree spin which landed them in the right direction, Natasha pushing down on the gas as soon as she realized what move Steve was making. Natasha was in tight control from there, even as bullets winged off of the back of the car, but didn't seem to damage it. Being one of Tony's cars, Steve should have guessed he'd reinforced it to the point of being bullet proof; his encounter with Vanko was not something any of them ever wanted to see a repeat of.

 _"Seriously, you two can't even last this long without being shot at?"_ Tony snapped at them from the speaker system, and Natasha flinched as the car turned itself, _"JARVIS, move their asses to safety; Nat, stop trying to drive and start trying to shoot."_

Steve twisted in his seat to see, his heart in his throat, "Tony, tell me that Bucky's still in hospital."

There was a long pause; long enough that even Natasha twisted around again to look at the console, _"He's not, Steve. He's trying to break into the tower as we speak."_ His voice was quiet; soft in a way that made Steve's every cell scream in his anxiety. _"I love you, Steve. I'll be okay. I always am, remember?"_

"Tony, don't you dare-" Natasha swore, but the line audibly went dead, and Natasha's voice snarled into a Russian litany of curses. "JARVIS, get me Clint."

 _"Nat, I do not have time to talk right now."_ Clint grit, voice more strained that Steve had ever heard him. There was the familiar draw and release of his bow, and Steve was suddenly utterly breathless. _"Get word to Phil that Tony and I will be in the Raft. He's the only one who'll be able to get us out."_ The sound of gunfire cut through the background noise of the call, and Natasha's cursing became Greek, which Steve had been assured was one of the most satisfying languages to curse in. The line went dead as Natasha twisted in her seat, leaning her side into the space between the window and the steering wheel as she shot out of the window, JARVIS continuing to drive the car more smoothly than Steve would've thought possible.

"What's their play?" Steve asked, reaching into the back seat and finding his shield, sliding it up and over so that it blocked as much of the interior as they could manage without hampering Natasha's shot.

"If Clint's right, and they're taking them to the Raft, then it's going to seem like we're being brought up on war crimes." Natasha reasoned. "I am fucking sick of this, Steve. JARVIS, get us to the damn airfield, I'm getting us out of here, fuck it."

" **I'm afraid I cannot, Agent Romanoff; Sir has found plans deep within SHIELD's archives for Helicarriers built with a weapons system that would target specific people-** "

"SHIELD-made for people like Saddam Hussain," Natasha breathed, her eyes wide as she looked over at Steve, "HYDRA-corrupted to target people like us."

" **Precisely**." JARVIS replied darkly. " **They are currently under SHIELD headquarters; once to the elevators, I will take over from there.** "

"What else have you found?" Steve asked, levering his head down as far as possible and pushing it back as much as it'd go, Natasha snarling as he pulled his shield between himself and the door, and Natasha into his lap and therefore out of the range at which she could keep shooting. "JARVIS, we'll meet you there."

Natasha's eyes widened, and she curled slightly, bracing her hands against the back of her head, Steve absorbing more of the impact as the troop transport rammed them from the side, sending the car rocking on two tires, the wheels just barely managing not to pop as they crashed back to the concrete. The car didn't deviate its speed, but Steve drew in a breath that felt slow, then opened his door just as the troop transport rammed them once more, launching the two of them from the car and onto the concrete as they started past the off-ramp to SHIELD headquarters, sparks kicked up from impact as they went skidding over the road, Natasha's head tucking down against his shoulder to protect his face. Steve had slightly miscalculated the angle, and reached out instinctively to swing them around a metal signpost, wincing as it bit into his hand and the pull on his arm made Natasha hiss in sympathy at the sound of pain that slipped out of his throat. The Ducati was the only one of the vehicles that could have followed them with how close all of them were following and how much of a turning radius was available to those modes of transportation. The car kept driving, and there was a very slim chance that at least some time could be bought in pursuit of that car. As soon as they ran out of momentum enough that they could, Steve flipped them up to their feet, Natasha managing like a cat, then flipped the shield up onto his arm neatly. Natasha looked from the road they had just detoured from to Steve, amusement bright in her green eyes, "That belongs in the comics, Steve."

"I really hope JARVIS tells Tony before I ever have to." He replied lightly, and she laughed like a tinkling of glass, the two of them turning and starting down the street, Natasha pulling them towards what looked like an electrical shed, jimmying the lock, and pulling them both in.

"Strip, rub that through your hair, and pick a pair of glasses." Natasha ordered, tossing a small tube of something that proclaimed to be brown hair colouring that he could simply rub through, then gestured to a wall that seemed to be devoted to eyeglasses, hats, and a careful selection of scarves. There was a wardrobe of clothes that Natasha directed herself to, and Steve decided to do the rub-through before stripping, since she'd yet to throw anything at him to wear yet. "Tony talked Clint and I into building several little bolt-holes like this. I don't want to know what gave him the idea, but it was a good one, I will say that."

"Just not to him?"

She threw a smirk and a snort over her shoulder, hair swinging as she stripped with her back to him, "Obviously."


	11. Chapter 11

The sight of the hulking Helicarriers was imprinted on Steve's eyelids. He and Natasha were half-collapsed against each other, alone in the world for now, because the world had just blown up around them in the very camp that had seen Steve struggle through basic training. Steve shifted his grip on Natasha, and she bit back a whimper at the shift of pain, their slow progress excruciating as they stumbled along, the fatigue growing heavier on them both with every shuffling step.

The sliding door opened before they even reached it, and Steve drank the sight in like it was iced tea on a summer's day. His features set, Sam Wilson ushered them in, eyes cutting up and down the block to make sure they weren't followed, for all the good it could do him. "Everyone we know is trying to kill us." Natasha managed, sounding groggy, and Steve wondered if he hadn't shielded her against the blast enough to stop a concussion.

"Not everyone. Get in here." Sam murmured, and as if they were both on strings, the second they stepped over the threshold, they both relaxed almost bonelessly, Steve barely sliding Natasha into a chair before he could lever himself into one at the cheery breakfast nook they'd intruded on. "Some guy named Jarvis told me to expect you."

"You have a Stark Phone." Natasha diagnosed, the smile twisted as she shook her head.

"Yeah..."

"JARVIS is Tony Stark's artificial intelligence. He really shouldn't be allowed to hack your phone!" Steve informed, though the last was a raised scolding of the phone.

 **"Forgive the impertinence, Captain Rogers, but first of all, I did not 'hack' anything. I telephoned. Secondly, I was under the impression that the continued safety of yourself and Agent Romanoff was paramount."**

"JARVIS, don't listen to him, I like you." Sam told him, tone very nearly scolding as he scowled at Steve and cradled his phone protectively.

"I love you, too, JARVIS, don't disown me along with that guy." Natasha murmured, voice wry but strained as she leaned back in the chair gingerly, favouring her right side with a caution that spoke to Steve of broken bones and back alleys in days long, long gone. "What agency authorized the drone strike on the boot camp?"

 **"It was not done under the algorithm of an agency. The drone itself was Hammer Tech-"**

"Well that explains why it failed to kill you." Sam commented tightly, shaking his head as he quietly moved to gather first aid supplies and run a towel under some cool water, flicking it at Steve's face so that it landed with a splat.

 **"Quite. The flash drive you procured by infiltrating SHEILD contained more than the coordinates of HYDRA's lair; I was able to mirror access to the computer into which you plugged it in and remotely download the information directly onto my servers. The drive you stole contained both the coding base of the new Helicarrier's selection process and...plans to use the Tessaract to bring back the villain known as Red Skull."** JARVIS paused, knowing that it was necessary to let that sink in, and giving it it's due course as the harsh scrape of chair against floor signalled the collapse of Steve Rogers into the chair next to Natasha. **"Sir anticipated the possibility of this when the Tessaract was first revealed during the New York episode. He calculated that the Tessaract likely deposited Johan Schmidt in a galaxy parallel to ours; and, according to Sir, the "likelihood of the fucker's survival is just our goddamned luck". The plans which HYRDRA has produced are likely to bear fruit."**

A strong hand wrapped around the back of Steve's neck, and he didn't try to put up a fight against its force, bending double in his seat to put his head between his knees and force himself to breathe as his mind raced and rumbled with the all-consuming weight of all he gave last time to stop Red Skull; all he had to give now-all he wasn't sure he could give up. He was a man changed from the idealist watching the news reels, aching to join the fight in order to stop the suffering of all those innocents: He wanted his own suffering to stop now, too.

"So what do we do?" Sam asked, leaning against his kitchen counter with a glass of juice, looking for all the world like they weren't talking about the end of the free world as they knew it.

Natasha's blunt nails scratched gently at the back of his neck with just enough pressure to make him wish he weren't above curling into the gesture like a touch-starved cat. "We find a way, or we make one." Natasha's voice was low and fast, her gaze sharp and unrelenting as she stared down at Steve. "But are you sure you want this to be your fight, too?"

"You got out..." Steve spoke up, drawing himself upright to meet Sam's eyes, "this might be a suicide mission; there's no better reason to stay out."

"Captain America needs your help; there's no better reason to get back in." Sam grabbed a file folder from the counter, slapping it down in front of Steve and standing back as he flipped it open and did a double take at what was laid out before him.

"What's this?"

"Call it a resume."

"I thought you said you were a pilot?"

"I never said 'pilot'." With a slight grin, Sam offered a hand to Natasha, "Let's get you two patched up, then you two can explain to me why JARVIS thinks you can sneak into Fort Meade, get through three guarded gates and a twelve-inch steel wall, and steal 'em."

Steve glanced at Natasha, who shrugged fluidly, looking over Sam's version of credentials as she did. Turning back, Steve couldn't help the small smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, "Shouldn't be a problem."

Once Natasha had showered away the smudges of ash, it was nearly impossible to ignore the weight of the air around her; the heaviness in her movements, and the sadness tingeing her steadiness.

Steve scrubbed at the dirt on his hands, building himself up to go out there. "You okay?"

He knew as soon as the words left his mouth that that wasn't the question that needed asking. She shrugged, still drying her hair piece by piece, and blinked up at him as he came in drying his hands, "Yeah."

Steve didn't have to have built the relationship with Natasha that allowed him to read through her mask to get to the cracks: these ones were written plainly on her features for him. But for as much as he knew she was letting him see them, he was sure that it was down to the trust between them; the relationship created from all the hours they spent together-not just since the Avengers splintered against this threat, but since he'd woken up. She had been the one to put down the foundations of his education in modern life. She had, he well knew, gathered intelligence on where he was in catching up so that Tony could appear at his apartment door with an offer to watch the very movie that Steve had come up with next on his ever-growing list. It was her brand of love, this indirect care. She did it with Clint, sending Coulson hounding for medical attention whenever she knew he was hurt; she was a force field for Bruce when the world and all the people in it became too much for him to deal with, including the lot of them; for Thor, she gathered intel on Jane's preferences so that she could nudge the demigod in the right direction.

The most interesting balance was that between Tony and Natasha, though. Steve had come to understand that Natasha had a strange soft spot for him, and had even seen it in action time and time again. But Tony resisted being taken care of, or taking care of himself, at every turn he could. But he loved to take care of other people, and therein laid the opening Natasha had so gracefully leapt into. They met, when Tony was having nights that even Steve couldn't help him with (they were few, and it was always hard for them both if either of them had a night bad enough that the other couldn't help them through), or when Natasha was feeling vulnerable for one reason or another. They would sit in silence for most of the night, a tea tray carefully prepared and painstakingly laid out in easy reach, and they would simply watch the city outside the window.

Pepper and Steve had taken to calling these nights the hard reset, and it was something that Steve felt like he needed to know more about, now.

He sat across from her with slightly less stiffness than he'd had when they'd arrived, meeting her eye and keeping her gaze, "What's going on?"

The question was quiet, easy in a way that allowed Natasha to shrug it off if she really wanted to, but he knew well enough to know she didn't. She looked blank, panicked-she looked hunted, and when she forced herself back to this quiet room in a suburb of Washington, DC, she had to look away from his gaze, "When I first joined SHIELD, I thought I was going straight. But I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA." She sighed so quietly that if it weren't for the fact that he was listening for it, he may not have heard the stir of breath, "I thought I knew whose lies I was telling-"

It was the same phrase she'd said in the car, and Steve knew that it was kicking around in her head like a song that wouldn't go away. He didn't know how to stop it; couldn't when things like that drove Tony to the point of mania, or when the things he heard in his worst moments, in his nightmares, wouldn't leave him alone.

"I owe you." She breathed, eyes huge and vulnerable, but for all they may have been wet, he knew she wasn't about to cry.

"No, you don't." Steve told her evenly. He'd tucked her under his body and his shield and taken the brunt of the explosion as easily as breathing, because he couldn't have another friend be lost to him.

"If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life-and you be honest with me-" she ducked her head, gaze unwavering now, "would you trust me to do it?"

She was a spy; someone who'd been taking marching orders for a long time from an agency they both now knew they couldn't trust. She'd been assigned to retrieve the very flash drive they'd broken back into SHIELD to steal, assigned this job while she was meant to be helping him with a hostage situation, and neither she nor SHIELD had divulged this side-job.

"I trust my family." Steve replied quietly, gaze just as steady as hers. "And I'm always honest."

Natasha couldn't help the smile pulling at her, "Especially when it'll get you your ass kicked." Her gaze flicked over him in a way that he'd seen her do just before she sicced Coulson on Clint, or pulled down the tea leaves Tony had hidden in the deepest reaches of their kitchen cabinets. "You seem pretty chipper for someone who just found out they died for nothing."

Steve took a deep breath, knowing that, at some point probably in the very near future, he was going to need to let himself fully face all that was weighing on him now. "I guess I just like to know who I'm fighting."

Sam leaned into the room, and with him came a waft of bacon and pancakes that made Steve nearly ache to be back home, "I made breakfast if you guys are into that kind of thing."

Natasha smiled her small, quiet smile and got up with surprising smoothness for someone whose ankle was more than likely sprained under a deluge of debris. "Thanks for this, Sam." Steve murmured, clapping him on the arm, "I can't tell you-"

"You don't need to." Sam cut him off, "I've been here in my own way; at some point, you wonder who it is you're fighting for. And sometimes you sure up that you're fighting for the right reasons...sometimes you find out you're fighting for a fascist sect that got started in Nazi Germany, walking around like it's the great protector of the free world." Steve snorted, and Sam grinned at him, cheeky.

"Are you sure you want to get into this with us?"

Sam's stance looked completely at ease, but there was an undercurrent; something that told Steve that while Sam was an easy-going guy, he was always just as ready for a fight as Steve was. "Man, I've been waiting to fight with you since my gramps showed me his comics collection. But excuse me if I step on your toes with all the heroing: I'm not a sidekick."

Natasha snorted, "Do not ask me to damsel. Fury knows only to ask me to damsel if he's willing to give me an extra three weeks' vacation and has enough beds in Medical for me to break anyone who's had to see me play damsel."

Sam glanced at Steve, who was nodding sagely despite never having been aware that damsel was really a card Fury had been willing to ask Natasha to play. "If I wanted a damsel, my best bet would be Tony with a cold so bad it requires bed rest."

"For a man who has literally had his chest ripped open without anaesthesia twice, he is a wimp in the face of the common cold." Natasha sighed as if she was direly disappointed.

Both Steve and Natasha knew that really, it was that very hole in his chest that caused all the grief when he got at all sick: diminished lung capacity combined with a cough meant that there were nights when Steve would wake to one of Tony's coughing fits and feel the ache of it in his own lungs just at the memory of what it was like not to be able to draw enough to breath to have a hope of surviving. In truth, Steve was fairly sure that Tony would keep going no matter how sick he got, especially since he'd already done it before-but now Natasha could tell with a glance that he'd been coughing so hard it hurt, and Steve could use every dirty trick in his repertoire to cancel whatever had Tony dragging himself out of bed. Being an American Icon had its few (and strange) perks.

"At least Tony eventually takes his medicine and rests, though. That's an improvement over his usual patterns of self-destruction and madness." Steve raised his glass of orange juice as if to toast Natasha's sentiment.

"JARVIS, is there anything you can tell us?" Steve asked once they'd settled into their food, Sam's phone conspicuously on the table.

 **"Sir is not injured; nor are Dr. Banner or Agent Barton. Structural damage to the Tower is limited to the workshop levels, I took the liberty of arranging to have a team insure that any hazards are rectified immediately and now the workshop waits for Sir to reconstruct as he will."**

Steve's fists had clenched, but Natasha beat him to the punch, "Are they in the Raft?"

 **"No. They were put into a secure SHIELD facility with a collection of...those that SHIELD has deemed to be threats."**

Natasha's gaze met Steve's, "The algorithm's early results?"

 **"Not as such. These were peoples determined to be what Sir would define as 'chaotic - neutral', or, better put, people who do not fall under SHIELD's limited definition of "good", with enough power and inclination that they could very well be made "bad"."**

"Are these people a threat to Tony, Clint, and Bruce?"

 **"Sir has organized them."**

"Jesus," Natasha laughed, shaking her head. "They took the bait." Steve shot her a look, and she quirked a smile, "We've been planting indicators in my reports that Tony can't actually handle leadership and organizational positions. Coulson being in charge of sweeping him up would have set things to rights should it have ever come to that; as it is, we gave Tony an opening to build a resistance."

Sam looked from Steve to Natasha, somewhere between impressed and horrified, "So what you're saying is that you've been feeding false intel to your organization, just in case."

"I always have an exit strategy." Natasha replied, and Steve could hear what she didn't say; that when it came to it, she'd built exit strategies for each of them. She'd do whatever it took to protect those she loved, and to be included in that list was an honour beyond words.

"Y'all take care of your own." Sam drawled, a smirk pulling at his mouth. "I can respect that. It seems damn risky, though."

"If Tony Stark tries to take over the world and the information is necessary, it'll be with Pepper Potts at his back, and no one in this world or any other could stand against the two of them, and I don't intend to." Natasha told him with an ease that very nearly made Steve giggle.

"So what's the plan to get my wings back?"

"That'll be you and Natasha. I need to try to get word to Fury. I want to see how far this goes, and if I can get help along the way, it'll come in handy."

Sam looked between them, surprised, "You two were too busy being chased through a mall and blown up to hear, then. Nick Fury was killed yesterday."

Natasha froze, and Steve felt himself deflate, just a little. If Nick Fury was dead, their chances of regaining normalcy when all was said and done had died with vacuum of power within SHIELD would have already been filled by a man named Alexander Pierce.

Steve had met him only once, during the memorial for the victims of the Chitauri attack; the man that ran the back office, day-to-day of SHIELD had been sombre and sincere in all of the right places, and it had sent up every red flag in Steve's mind. It was too close to the senators of his early career; too reminiscent of the men who would say whatever they had to-and would make him say whatever they had to-in the days when he was nothing more than a dancing monkey in a spangly costume. Natasha had known that, of course, and had, albeit a little grudgingly, pulled Steve out of the spotlight, and let the wheeling and dealing fall to Tony pretty much in its entirety.

"You still need to go. Fury's throne wasn't made only of lies." Natasha told him. "Sam and I will go to Fort Meade, you let JARVIS find a way to plant a seed in their heads, get them to think-get them to question."

"Some grand speech gonna make a difference?"

Steve and Natasha shared a look at that, "Depends on who it is delivering it."

"No one better than Captain America." Sam murmured, grinning, and Steve shook his head, smiling slightly.

Thor had said it best when he'd boredly walked away from all attempts to get him to be inspirational Agent Hill had been trying to coax him into for the media frenzy after Thor had returned from Asgard. He was supposed to be a warrior prince, Hill had reasoned, and should therefore be able to be an inspiration to all, a leader of men. Tony had laughed himself sick, said the ridiculousness of assuming that because a man of action was supposed to be a leader of the people that he would ever be less a man of action was the most amusing thing he'd heard in years. And Steve knew how right he was about that.

Steve didn't like to be the man making the speech, but if it would help him to stand for what he believed in; for what he needed to fight for. None of them liked to be the one to make the speech; Tony was usually the one who was most ready to dive onto that grenade, and Steve was the one most often thrown on it, but when they finally got together it threw into sharp relief that they wore masks more of the time than not; and neither of them counted the HUD or Steve's cowl in that list of masks they'd been wearing. There was a time when Steve hadn't realized that the masks Tony wore weren't as easy to take off as Steve's were. Seeing Tony wearing his masks with them, in those first months of team building and tentative friendship, was something that had made Steve sick and angry until he'd finally realized that the reason he wore them was because his parents hadn't been the kind of people who put their masks down willingly, and Tony himself hadn't been in such close proximity with someone-let alone a superpowered team of someones-for so long a time.

Tony's masks were in place most of the time when they'd all first moved into the Tower. Of course, if you weren't looking for them, you couldn't tell he had any masks-but Steve had been trying to puzzle Tony Stark out for months by then, and saw them for what everyone would have seen them as; a gambit to keep everyone else at bay. It was much later, when Tony was comfortable enough to pad out of their bedroom and fall limp onto his side like a marionette with the strings cut, that Steve realized just what it was, really. It was a way to keep himself from doing or saying the wrong thing without armour against the consequences. Hidden in his mask, if he misbehaved without meaning to (he usually meant to, but Steve had been learning the difference of when he didn't) he was protected against the fallout on a personal level: he was just Tony Stark, the playboy billionaire philanthropist not Tony Stark, the man who had gotten to witness his father fall into alcoholism, and alternate between neglect and-Steve hated this more than anything in all his years asleep-abuse. Tony had a mask so that no one could see the cracks when he misstepped and the "illusion" of his goodness was called into question. He had a mask so that he could play off the accusations and the rumours that haunted him despite every act of heroism he'd ever performed, and every act of heroism he'd yet to perform.

Steve had learned the true value of the persona they'd built for him during the war when Tony had been attacked throughout the media for not doing enough during a Doombot attack when he was lauded for his contribution. Tony had been the one to figure out how to stop the damn things; Steve had barely been able to make a nick in their paint jobs. Tony had laughed it off, and Steve had told Hill that if she expected him to sit down with the reporter who had just that morning accused Tony of inciting the attack, he would not be responsible for his actions. Hill was going to argue with him, until Phil walked in and told her that if she wanted to be transferred to their PR department, she'd have to fill out the paperwork and file it with HR before they could officially instate her to the position. Tony hardly needed Steve to defend him; he'd mastered the art of wrangling the media by the time he'd turned ten, after all; Steve had been learning from him more than he'd ever managed to glean on his own, and he'd simply accepted that and reminded himself to pay closer attention the next time the press gathered around him so that he, too, could bait Fox News and the Daily Bugle into a frantic back-paddling in one fell swoop, just as Tony'd taught him.

"When we get home, I'm taking Pepper to a spa and if anyone calls us, I'll kill them." Natasha groaned, leaning back in her chair and letting her head fall back in exhaustion.

"Tony and I will be in the lab. I feel like I might need to blow something up after this." Steve agreed. Sam was shaking his head, arms folded on the table in front of him.

"I didn't take you for the kinda guy to blow shit up for fun."

"You've clearly never seen someone as into science as Tony is when they're promised they can blow shit up as much as they want with their favourite person in the world." Natasha's voice was dripping with laughter, "I was lucky enough to get invited to the last round of implosive testing after Bruce got labelled a terrorist by Breitbart and Tony was called before that senate hearing. It's entertaining beyond words."

"Where was I for that one?"

"You were with Clint and Coulson." Natasha told him dismissively, and Steve repressed a look of incredulity, because of course Natasha would know where he'd been when he was meant to be on an entirely off-the-books op to go meet Coulson's family. He wouldn't have been invited to that session; that was before he and Tony had found some peace with each other, and he wasn't welcome in Tony's space, JARVIS had made that clear when he'd knocked and JARVIS had sent a short through the holographic interface the glass had, buzzing a lovely shock up though his knuckles that had left his whole arm tingling. Tony had torn JARVIS a new one the second he'd found out, and Steve had felt his heart twinge in response to the care with which Tony had examined his hand. In his cheesier moments, Steve wondered if it wasn't down to Tony's work-worn fingers on his skin that had caused the majority of the tingling. "Your scrambled eggs skills would be much in demand at Avengers Tower, Sam. You're being adopted. You have no choice in the matter."

Sam laughed, shrugging his acceptance happily and reaching for an unmarked jar of chilli sauce that Steve knew he needed to get the recipe for, because Clint would love it. "Please don't make Tony remodel so your eggs can be fluffy." Steve put up the token protest, since he had been labelled the responsible one.

"Pfft. He can have Rhodey's room. Rhodey swore he'd never sleep in the tower again after that fiasco with the Warriors Three and tequila."


	12. Chapter 12

The mash of it was still murky in his mind's eye; the battle unfolding more like a plan than an actual battle.

They'd learned that part of the serum was an increasing change of his mind. Already tactical, the longer the serum was in him, the more methodical the way he processed information became.

He knew that he was injured from the smell. There was blood and fire on the air, but the overwhelming chemical stench of the hospital pressed against his already aching head to the point that he felt as though he'd start crying for the pain with his eyes still glued shut. There was a smooth jazz rhythm in this room, though, and it was easy to relax into the flow of the music for now; to imagine a world in which he hadn't nearly been beaten to death by his best friend. A world in which he hadn't had to ask countless good people to sacrifice their lives for a fight he should have won when he took that damned plane down. That world would have hands the temperature of the sun pulling through his hair and he would not be on an IV.

He fell so deeply into the music that he barely noticed as ballerina-light footsteps left with a slow, aching shuffle to match, and a new body flopped into the chair beside his bed-but he did notice, and he cracked his eyes open as much as he could to see who it was that had taken Tony's place sitting vigil.

Cheeks, jaw, teeth, and lips screamed in protest as he smirked, the words like sandpaper on an open wound when he opened his mouth to speak, "On your left."

Sam Wilson started slightly from the trance that he'd been put into by the music, and he grinned. "Well, don't you look gorgeous."

"I am taken, but thank you." Steve returned, his mouth twitching, "Where'd he go?"

"Natasha's making him take a shower and a nap and possibly force-feeding him." Sam replied, "You two are so co-dependant."

"Yes, because without me there he didn't organize a damn army."

"And without him there, you didn't do the exact damn thing." Sam agreed, steepling his fingers. "We won, though...if you were wondering. The Avengers are no longer under fire; the press somehow got the information about HYDRA and several arrests seem to have been made. Considering their motto, I think we may have Disney's Hercules situation here soon." The expression of confusion hurt Steve's face, so he stopped making it, determining to Google it later, if he remembered.

"How many dead?"

"Far fewer than there would have been had Sam, Natasha, and yourself not stepped in." Phil told him from the doorway. He looked more haggard than he normally did, though only if you knew what to look for. The stack of paperwork he was carrying seemed to weigh more than he was willing to bear for much longer, as he dragged himself into the room and placed it on Sam's lap. "You scared us."

The code was easy to read: You came too close to dying.

"Everyone else?"

"Tony has a dislocated shoulder from catching your heavy ass princess style after you decided to jump out the damn elevator." Sam griped distractedly. "I'm bruised like a damn peach; Clint has run away with the anarchist psychic vampires; and Natasha had to zap herself with her down Bite, but she's golden."

"SHIELD is dead." Phil finished, sounding somewhere between despondent and amused, "The Avengers...are out of the frying pan. Whether or not we've hit the fire is yet to be seen."

"General Ross?"

"Was not in bed with HYDRA, according to the documents that we've gotten access to."

"So he's still a threat."

"Not as such right now, no." Phil sighed, "Tony chose to play his card, and I have to say that he did it perfectly; General Ross is being investigated by a global security tribunal for his part in the creation of Abomination and the public currently loathe him to the point of calling for his dismissal."

"What did Tony release to the public?"

"Ross, just after the fiasco with Abomination, tried to call a court martial down on you. Tony stepped in when he started claiming SHIELD wasn't authorized to become the vehicle in which you continued your service. You were still just getting your sea legs back. Ross would have thrown you into a lab-"

"And I never would have come back out." Steve predicted, wishing he'd known sooner that Tony was protecting him. "He used proof of that to sway the public opinion."

"You have around an hour, I'd say. Natasha is forcing him to shower and will make him eat something that isn't hospital food, but she can't do much to make him sleep, and we all know it."

"He's gonna be pissed you woke up without him." Sam commented from about an eighth of the way through the pile of paperwork. "Who the hell is crazy enough to insure you lunatics?"

"Rule one around the Avengers, Sam: Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to." Phil recited by rote. "Rule two: Standing between the scientists and coffee will result in loss of limb, and no sympathy from any of us."

"Rule three: If you try to startle Natasha, you will get maimed. Rule four: Don't tell Thor where the Pop Tarts are hidden. Rule five: If an Avenger or any Avenger-related personnel asks for the box set of Mythbusters and anything remotely incendiary, call Psych and Medical and back away slowly."

"What's Thor's version of rule four?" Sam asked.

"Thor doesn't really have the rules, since he's not made for rules. Instead, Darcy teaches him through idioms from children's movies and Pop Tarts as a positive reinforcement." Phil's long-suffering tone didn't cover the half of it, and Steve fought against snickering in deference to his broken ribs. "Which reminds me that I need to write her up for the "fish are friends" incident."

Sam looked up from the paperwork, glancing at Steve for further information, "Darcy tried to use "fish are friends, not food" to emphasize how very breakable people are. Clint then binge watched Hannibal with him, and Thor...well, he was upset."

"Upset..." Phil scoffed, rubbing the bridge of his nose like it would help with an Avengers-induced headache.

"I don't wanna know. I just don't want to know." Sam immediately piped up, hands out like someone was getting a bead on him.

Steve chuckled, closing his eyes against the light. "Word to the wise? If any of us ever ask you if you really want to know; the answer is no, you do not want to know-chances are, _we_ don't want to know, but we do and you should pity us for that knowledge."

Phil's face was inscrutible, but Sam got the sneaking suspicion that he would not refute that particluar claim. "Y'all need therapy."

Steve let out a bark of laughter that rattled through his chest like a harsh winter wind in the empty halls of an abandoned house. "Oh, we've tried therapy. Do you know the paperwork required when an entire Psych department for an international organization admits themselves to hospital for psychological distress?"

Steve had a sense that Sam had drained of all colour at that prospect, and fought another bout of laughter at the schadenfreude that had caused. He did, in his more charitable moments, feel bad about the headache they'd caused Phil, but it was worth it to have made Fury's forehead vein pulsate like that when they explained that in talking about their issues, their doctors had had nervous breaks. "I maintain that my doctor was already shaken after the Fantastic Four opened that portal in Grand Central Station and six of our operatives got sucked into the Cretaceous period then spat back out two weeks later."

Phil made a sound that Steve had to crack a smile at, the frustration and pain of it warring with the sheer entertainment the memory provided.

"Two weeks with dinos...you're kidding right?"

"It was two weeks for us. For them, it was three years." Phil replied in a voice that left no room for questions, on threat of death.

"Jesus."

Steve felt himself drifting again, his body shutting down so that the serum could do its work to fix him up again. He hadn't been quite this injured in a long time, and he wondered how different it would be now that he had a fast pass to healing. He wanted to stay awake until he saw Tony, but that was fast becoming a daydream.

Tony had appeared on a rain of glass and a string of curses that managed to impress even Steve, catching Steve out of a swan dive out of an elevator with nothing but a glass ceiling to stagger his descent to the ground. Steve had wrapped himself around the armour even as he'd taken in the threats that could shoot them out of the air with Steve's bulk slowing Tony down.

Tony had brought the group of potential threats with him, Clint sent to retrieve Thor and warn Coulson that they rather broke the top-security holding cell when they'd been gathered into what had turned out to be a high-tech gas chamber. Then they'd ended up in the thick of it, with civilians on the line, and Steve had surrendered that battle, with Natasha bleeding and Tony limping and bruised where the Winter Soldier had torn his suit off so that he could pummel Tony all the more thoroughly. Steve wanted to see Tony again, if only to take stock of his bruises and let his brain run through battle plans to smother them both in kisses without hurting either of them.

"Sleep, man. I'll tell him you woke up without him if you don't." Sam threatened as if he was reading Steve's mind.

"Sadist." Steve mumbled, unable to bring any more volume to his voice.

When he woke next, a familiar hand was in his hair, and Tony's thumb was tracing idle circles against his forehead. Steve's arm reached for him before he could remember to mind the IV, and he hissed slightly as it caught. "Don't do that." Tony admonished quietly, "You're too pretty to be this bruised, don't give yourself another." Light as an death, Steve felt him press a kiss to the place his thumb had just traced, their fingers tangling instead. "What were you dreaming?"

Steve opened his eyes, drinking in the sight of Tony, even if he was dented. "Good dreams...we were in Times Square at Christmas, and you kept kissing me every time I turned to look at you."

"Mmm, sounds like something I'd do." Tony hummed, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I rode a helicarrier out of the air." Steve replied even as he carefully shifted his limbs to gauge the ache flaring out from so much of his body that he felt as if his eyelashes were in agony, too.

"I'm so sorry, Steve." Tony's voice was rough, and Steve released his hand to catch his chin, "I wasn't there to catch you."

Steve ran his thumb over Tony's split lip with barely a touch behind it. "You didn't need to. I sent you away, and I'm glad you listened to me. I know that wasn't easy."

"I love you, you adrenaline addict."

Steve grinned, wishing Tony would get down there and kiss him. "I love you, too. I told Nat and Sam that you and I were gonna hole up in the lab for the next month and just explode things."

Tony laughed softly, the backs of his knuckles tracing over Steve's jaw. "That's a date."

"How's the rest of the team?"

"No one's as injured as you. Bruce and Betty have officially broken things off and gotten closure; Natasha has disappeared and taken Pepper with her, she said you'd know where to find them and whether it would be worth the maiming if you needed them found; Thor, Jane, and Darcy are showing Frigga around New York; and Clint has disappeared off to run with a bad crowd."

"And you?"

Tony glanced away, and Steve wished he could pull Tony into bed with him without incurring the wrath of both Tony and likely the hospital staff. "I may have dislocated my shoulder and spent the last few days parked here."

"Mmm, that's no good." Steve sighed, shifting and grunting at the redistribution of weight on tender bones. "Any sign of Bucky?"

"No. And I've back-hacked the chips they put in him, but in order to deactivate it, it has to be turned all the way off; I couldn't keep the tracking without keeping the incendiary capabilities, and I figured you'd rather I get rid of that than keep the ability to track him down."

"You're damn right about that." Steve confirmed, voice rough as he reached for Tony's hand once more, "What'll it take to get you in here with me?"

"According to the doc? Another ten hours of sleep." Tony snorted, shaking his head at Steve's pout. I would climb in there with you in a heartbeat, but I won't be responsible for hurting you, and you take up enough of that bed that even if you weren't a breathing bruise, I'm pretty sure I'd end up accidentally hurting you."

"I can take an elbow to the solar plexus."

"Babe, the bed's almost too small for you on your own. I'm not climbing in there with you, put those big blue eyes away." Tony laughed, looking more at ease than he had been.

"Are you casting aspersions on my weight?"

Tony shot him a look, and Steve grinned, sharp and real. "You're not allowed to talk any more; go back to sleep." Steve cocked a brow, and Tony put on a mask of innocence, "If you go to sleep, you'll heal more, then I can bring you home and we can snuggle to your heart's content."

"Promises, promises." Steve sighed, pressing his thumb to the throb of pulse in Tony's wrist, "Kiss me at least."

Sighing like he was being put-upon, Tony leaned in, hesitating before allowing his lips to press to Steve's, drawing out that moment before their lips met until Steve could close his eyes and imagine the kiss and have it feel real from the warm stir of breath over his lower lip. When Tony finally kissed him, Steve nearly whimpered, but he wasn't in the least ashamed of the sound rumbling out of his chest. Tony licked his lower lip then ran his teeth over them in a way that sent every one of Steve's nerves howling for more.

"You should not be allowed to kiss me like that..." Steve sighed, "especially when I'm stuck in bed."

"You should have thought about that before demanding I kiss you, babe." Tony pressed a soft, easy kiss to Steve's lips, and for as chaste as it was, it was like Steve had touched a live wire. "I adore kissing you. When we get home, I'm going to spend a day kissing you...everywhere."

Steve whined, finding himself pinned to the bed when he tried to raise his hand to thread his fingers through Tony's curls. "Cheater."

"I take what advantages I can." Tony replied, amusement dripping from his voice. Steve laughed on a breath, noting that the ache of his ribs had actually subsided slightly from when he'd first woken. "Do you want to eat?"

"What's on offer?"

"Oh, I'd be willing to go get you whatever you want. We're still in D.C., so I know three decent Thai places, and can find a pizza place that the politicos smuggled here from New York."

"Now _that's_ an offer." Steve agreed immediately, "Will they deliver?"

"Not as such, no." Tony grinned, "But I know a guy."

Steve chuckled, "So long as I don't have to let go of you, I'm happy."

"Gosh, you're easy." Tony laughed, taking out his phone with the hand that wasn't intertwined with Steve's. "We need a pie, please. Just get the margarita and the garlic bruschetta, that'll be the most agreeable to the most of us. See you in fifteen? You're my favourite-don't tell Pepper."

Steve smirked, laying back against his pillows and closing his eyes. "You do know that drowning us both in garlic does not curtail the kissing, right?"

"Not the point," Tony chuckled, "though the strategy is sound."

A warm palm rested against his forehead lightly enough that the heat washed through the bruises without twinging them, Tony's fingers lightly pushing through his hair, the pressure only increasing when he pushed into the touch. Tony didn't quite smell like himself; a generic soap overwriting the usual cologne, and the scent of metal muted from so long outside his workshop. Steve breathed him in anyway, trying to centre himself with the simple presence of Tony at his side.

"You do need to eat, Steve. Don't fall asleep just yet. That IV's pumping you full of fluids, but your system's also claiming you're malnourished."

"I nearly drowned, and you're telling me I'm dehydrated?"

"Yes, you asshole, so the next time I'm in prison, you'd better damn well drink your water and eat your Wheaties."

"I promise I won't die of dehydration or malnutrition if you go back to prison."

"Not _if_ , my darling: _when_." Tony chided, kissing the corner of Steve's mouth. "You underestimate the likelihood of whether I'll end up in prison again?"

"Never," Steve chuckled, "I might be overestimating how quickly I'd jailbreak you back out, though."

"Golly, Steve, you're gonna make me blush." Tony teased.

"You say that like it's a bad thing: I like you in red."

"When you get out of here, I'm going to climb you like a tree." Tony told him like it was a threat.

"Mmm, promise?"

Tony chuckled, kissing him slowly and softly, "Cross my heart."

"Ugh, get off him." Rhode y'all voice cut into their quiet kisses, and Steve sighed against Tony's mouth, shaking his head minutely. "Gross. Like walking in on your parents-"

"Oh, don't make me come back there." Tony growled with an overwrought grumpiness.

"I will turn this car around!" Bruce finished for him, sliding into the room with the bags of food while Rhodey dealt with the chairs. "Hey, Cap."

"Hey, doc." Steve murmured, grinning as they sidled in. "How goes?"

"I'm nearly indestructible."

"So you've got a bit of a headache and you're kind of queasy?" Steve asked, looking for the bed controls as Bruce laid out the food.

Tony reached over without looking and pressed the button to raise Steve into a sitting position. "You okay?"

Steve adjusted his weight slightly from the change in position, trying to compensate the pressure off his ribs. "Fine." Bruce nodded as sarcastically as Steve had ever seen a man nod, plucking up Steve's chart and flipping through it studiously. Steve might've bought it if he didn't know Tony well enough to know that he'd been texting updates to Bruce the nanosecond they came in. "How's Thor?"

"He's good. He's showing Frigga around the museum circuit today." Bruce replied absently, "Caffeine has no effect on your system, correct?"

"Coffee's my go-to placebo." Steve agreed, popping open the large container of bruschetta and breathing in the smell of garlic and fresh tomatoes and onions, drizzled with a balsamic vinegar, the deeper, savoury scent of basil understated but deliciously so. Mouth watering, he felt his hunger hit him like a freight train. The bread was toasted with olive oil, crisp without being harsh and sturdy enough with the overflowing taste of fresh vegetation to bring the taste of the bread through. Steve moaned indecently and turned red to his ears, Tony's snickering barely muffled into a bit of his own piece of ambrosia. Tony hummed appreciatively, dark eyes dancing with mirth as he watched Steve devour the first piece with enough relish that he may have curled his toes at the second bite.

"Should we leave you and the bruschetta alone?" Bruce teased lightly, biting into his pizza gingerly enough that he managed not to get hot cheese grease or sauce on him.

"Told you it was good we got two orders." Rhodey commented muffledly, mouth full of the minimal crust. "Mm, this is good."

"You doubt my ability to randomly find the best food in the immediate area of where I am." Tony scoffed, "It's like we never drunkenly stumbled around Boston after getting into a fight in a bar." Rhodey snorted in response, rolling his eyes as he bit half his slice of pizza off.

Bruce emerged then, looking between the two old friends, "I've always wondered how you two became you two."

Rhodes and Tony exchanged a look, both amused and speculative, "It all started 'cause I was young and impressionable." Rhodey started, grinning soldierly as Tony snorted.

"I was a teenager stumbling drunk into Rush Week with too much money and not enough survival instinct-"

"All that's really changed is that you're sober." Rhodey replied lightly. Tony grinned his 'fuck you' grin and stole a piece of pizza basically out from under Rhodey's fingers. "Anyway: I was young and impressionable, and then there was this kid in over his head, right in front of me. And this kid had been the guy to help save my dad's life in Vietnam; he'd saved a lot of lives with what he could do, and he was only a goddamned kid. So I did what I could to make sure he grew up. More fool me; this asshole'll never grow up."

"This is true." Bruce sighed, resigned, and Steve snorted in his agreement. "I don't know what came over me that I decided you were a good idea."

"Bribery. I gave you food. It's how I got Pepper, too. She would have strangled me ages ago, but I buy her off."

"I can believe that." Steve murmured, "What's my prognosis, doc?"

"I'd give you three hours to be fully healed, but they're going to want to keep you in for longer to make sure."

"How long you figure?"

"Oh, they're going to want to get you to sleep again for at least another eight hours. You heal better when you hold still." A disapproving eyebrow arched as he glanced over Steve.

"Pfft."

"Eloquent protest." Rhodey commented smoothly, grinning as he bit off half a slice of pizza in one snap of his jaws.

"I'm not much for speech making."

"Oh, please. We all heard the call to arms; Tony conference called everyone and had JARVIS sending heart-eye emojis during the whole damn thing." Bruce informed him.

Rhodey's brows shot up, "You got heart-eyes? He sent me two eggplant emojis, an airplane and a moon."

Steve turned red, and Bruce only had to glance at him before immediately deciding, "I don't wanna know. Nope. Not even going to consider it. Just no."

"At least you were slightly more appropriate for the general populace. If I tell you I should be considered the general populace, I'm just going to end up getting worse text updates."

"Yes, of course. _Have we met?!_ Of course I'm going to torment you. It's _me_." The tone of complete effrontery made Steve huff a creaking laugh, and Tony grinned his sharpest grin.

"I don't understand what made you choose that." Rhodey told Steve quietly.

"Oh, you're better off not knowing what he bribed me with." Bruce let out a noise of pained regret, muffled by a mouthful of food and carried off with such a look of hangdog sadness that it was something Steve felt like he'd found on the internet. Sharing a grin with Tony, Steve promised himself he wouldn't scandalize Bruce too badly, then realized the error of that thought and resolved not to treat Bruce any differently than he would any other of his friends. As the food disappeared, Steve felt more and more like himself; the aches erasing and the stress that this whole thing had caused easing out of his spine. He was with friends. He was with Tony. He didn't have to worry about people trying to kill them for now; all he needed to concern himself with were the bags under Tony's eyes and helping Clint keep Coulson sane in the face of taking over what little was left of SHIELD, because surely that would fall to him if Fury chose to remain dead.

Steve felt himself flagging into the heavy warmth of being sleepy before long, and Tony knew the second he did, petting through his hair and running a work-rough hand over his cheek and down his neck, fingers firm enough that the sweeping strokes were like perfectly played keys and Steve was a finely-tuned piano. Angling his head in question, Steve smirked as Tony kissed his forehead in answer, eyes closed now, leaving him floating on the rise and fall of conversation; Tony and Rhodey bickering easily while Bruce both moderated and played sarcastic peanut gallery.

"You know, I think I blame you." Bruce told the room during a lull in the conversation. Steve didn't know who he was addressing, and couldn't summon the will to open his eyes to find out.

"That's how it usually goes. What'd I do this time?" Tony replied, laughter that felt just too close to fake dripping in his voice.

"You made him comfortable with me." Bruce replied, "Before-he didn't walk on eggshells, not like some. But..."

"Oh, Brucie bear, were you feeling like there were kid gloves involved? There were kid gloves all around, if memory serves. It's not like you and Thor were on the best of terms in the bad old days."

Bruce chuckled, and Steve could picture him shaking his head, "Yeah, but it was never like that with you, now, was it? You came in and told me you were a fan of how I could turn into a giant, green rage monster. I still don't know how it is you have no fear."

"No sense is usually the accusation, but same diff." Tony quipped, and Steve felt more than heard him sit forward in his seat, dark eyes mesmerizing, "If the deserts of Afghanistan couldn't kill me after a stint as a hostage for a terrorist cell, there's not much that I believe can kill me anymore."

"But what I want to know is how you did it with them." Bruce insisted, voice quiet and steady in a way that spoke of analysis of an experiment's results. "I nearly killed Natasha. Wanted to kill Thor. Clint had no reason to stand with us at all, and we both know he was equipped with an arrow that he could have tried to use to take me down."

"You're not a threat, Bruce. Neither is the big guy, not when you're somewhere people know you; know him. You want my honest opinion? I think how I did it was by falling out of that portal. By being in a situation where you caught me. You saved my life. It's not like he could ignore that."

"Thor could have caught you-"

"You got there first." Tony's low, insistent voice took on the smoothness of honey, and Steve knew how right he was, because this was what Tony Stark truly believed. "No one but you saved me, Bruce. When you did that, you weren't about to be a threat anymore. Especially to someone who tries so hard to fall."


	13. Chapter 13

"Go to sleep." The murmur was low, husky, and it visibly settled something tense within the shadow standing over the bed. "I'm right here. Just relax. You're safe."

A warm hand fluttered up, settling over the tension remaining at the small of Tony's back, and like a saint's hands healed, that hand let the rest of worry that Tony was running on simply release, leaving his rocking on the soles of his feet. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"Mmm," in a delicious ripple of muscle over navy blue cotton, the long line of the soldier's body stretched over the sheets of their bed, twisting so that he could settle on his back and look at the shadow of the man he loved, blue eyes blinking up sleepily, "wanted to wait up for you, but the bed is way too comfy for that." With a soft, sleepy smile, he raised his hand again, hooking a long finger through the belt loop on Tony's hip, the tug of that weight drawing Tony's jeans down scant inches."What were you working on?"

"The latest tracking system we built for Bruce has some interesting applications with our GPS and maps systems in the Stark Phone." Tony sighed, stripping off his t-shirt and kicking out of his boosts and socks. Tony shuddered slightly at the breadth of Steve's hand as Steve shifted his hand to thumb the worn jeans open without removing his fingers from the loop on Tony's hip. Tony's lips quirked as he moved to kick the jeans away, the bare skin beneath more than happy for Steve's fingers once he'd stepped back into reach. Steve ran his thumb over the cut of Tony's hip because he couldn't resist touching that skin, then lifted the blankets invitingly; revealing the long line of his bare side, and Tony bit his lip as his clever eyes took that skin in. "Today was not a good day."

"No," Steve sighed his agreement as Tony slid into his arms with a shudder at the wave of warmth that rolled over Tony's chilled skin. Tony tucked their legs together, settling into his embrace with relish, "it was decidedly a bad day. I nearly lost you again today."

"How'd you know...?" Tony didn't have to qualify the question; Steve knew that he was wondering how the soldier was able to tell in the dark of their bedroom that Tony had needed the assurance that Steve was there-that they were safe together-before Tony's genius mind spiralled too far into memories that even the most valiant of the knights in shinging armour couldn't fight off to bring Tony peace. "I mean, you always do, but..."

"Ever think I needed the reassurance that you're safe, too?" Tony pressed his face into the hollow of Steve's shoulder, practically purring as Steve's long, blunt fingers tangled in his hair. "Will you stay here if you wake up first? Please?"

The thin thread buried in Steve's voice that bled with vulnerability had Tony curling into Steve's chest. Tony laid a kiss onto Steve's collarbone, letting out a shaky exhale as he nodded. "Yeah...yeah." Steve hugged him even tighter, pressing a kiss to Tony's stubbly cheek. "Neither of us should be alone tonight, huh?"

"I have nightmares about you falling from the sky enough already. It was a test of will to let you alone in the workshop." Steve admitted, voice rougher than it had been for a very long time. Steve reached for Tony's hand, winding their fingers together as he pressed kisses along the wrinkles becoming ingrained in his forehead. "I know that you're angry at yourself, but it's not your fault."

Tony shivered at the memory of the way the world had shattered when he'd finally managed to shake off the alien that had locked onto his suit to drain the power from it. They'd been going at super-sonic speed, and if had crashed into an office building still being evacuated, which had crumpled like an empty pop can, with Tony unable to do anything to help the rescue attempts as Hulk and Thor had rushed into action. He was being targeted by the remaining force of the invasion, because he was a moving power source for these things. Ultimately, the only way Tony had managed to survive fighting them off was a direct impact with the Atlantic at speeds that would have made him a bug on a windshield had he not broken the surface tension of the water with a set of scattering flash-bangs. Impact had knocked him unconscious, and the suit was drained enough that it sensed the water, sealed, and began buffering his exhalations to recycle oxygen, but JARVIS couldn't take over to get him in any kind of position to get out of trouble. Coming-to, Tony had been at the bottom of the harbour, JARVIS and Steve trying desperately to talk him awake because when the aliens had impacted, the pure energy that they lived on had electrified the water badly enough that the only one besides him who could get into the water safely was Thor, who was still evacuating buildings that the aliens had latched onto.

"I don't want to stand at the side of any other body of water waiting for you to come back out of it." Steve murmured. "You got lucky; JARVIS told me how fast you were going, and what would've happened-"

"JARVIS, why are we telling scary stories to the love of my life?" Tony interrupted, slightly peeved.

 **"He asked."** Came the simple, unimpressed response, and Steve hid his grin, pulling Tony's body into his more securely.

Tony growled anyway, tucking his face into Steve's neck and running his hands over the dip of Steve's waist. "I love you, but if you do that to me again, I'll hurt you."

"Spanking?"

"Celibacy."

Tony winced, "I was wondering when that card would be played."

"All I ask is that you be more careful." Steve whispered, rubbing his thumb in the dimple to the right of Tony's spine. "Please, Tony."

"You were in a hospital bed last month-"

"You don't ask me to be careful," Steve agreed, "you don't ask me to stop jumping from great heights. But that's because you can catch me. Tony, I can't catch you. I wish to God I could. That's all I want to do, Tony."

Tony nudged into him, Steve cupping a hand against the back of his neck. "I don't need you to catch me then, Steve. I'd rather you catch me now."

Steve sighed, pulling fingers through Tony's hair. "I don't always feel like I can do that, either."

"You do, Steve. Even when I don't realize I'm falling."

Steve let out a slow breath, making the conscious choice to put it behind himself and settle into the warmth and weight of Tony Stark in his arms. As much as he could, Steve forced himself to relax around Tony; his screaming instincts to protect forced back with the steady beat of Tony's pulse and the heat of Tony's skin seeping into the cold of his own.

Sleep was there slowly and all at once, the waking coming as if the slumber was little more than just the course of a blink. Tony's tangle of dark curls against his chest was angled so that Tony could listen to his heartbeat, and Steve knew that Tony had had a nightmare just from that. Winding his fingers through the tendrils, Steve closed his eyes and let the easy pull of breath into Tony's lungs dictate the rhythm of his own breathing, hoping-he knew, futilely-that he might be lulled back to sleep. Petting his hand down from the tumble of Tony's hair, Steve cupped his hand against the back of Tony's neck, then traced his hand down the too-cool skin of Tony's back. As gingerly as possible, Steve reached down to drag their blankets upwards to cover that bare skin, and the resulting snuffle released against his chest sending a wave of warmth and fondness through Steve's chest that made him want to melt. Steve closed his eyes as he raised Tony's hand to his lips, running a gentle finger over his knuckles while Tony sighed, eyelashes fluttering.

"I love you, too, Steve. Go back to sleep." Tony mumbled, cuddling tighter into his chest and squeezing gently. "It's still early yet, my love."

"It's the nightingale, and not the lark?" Steve didn't know where Shakespeare was surfacing from in his mind, but it made Tony chuckle, pressing a kiss over his pectoral before snuggling back in.

"I always took myself to be Mercutio, not Juliet."

"No dying of stab wounds." Steve murmured sternly, kissing his forehead over and over.

"No dying of poison." Tony replied easily. Tony tensed like he was about to move, but he collapsed bonelessly after a moment, letting out a groan that vibrated through Steve's chest. "Nope, not moving to kiss you back. Not moving period." Steve laughed huskily, rubbing his thumb behind Tony's ear.

"I could move you."

"Don't you fucking dare." Tony growled. "I am not small enough for that."

Steve snickered, running his hand slowly up and down Tony's back. He let himself start to drift again, but he knew in the back of his mind that there was something clicking through Tony's, so sleep wasn't yet in the cards again.

"Where are you going to go to start the search?" Tony finally asked, voice quiet like he'd hoped Steve had fully fallen asleep so his question would go unanswered.

"The search for Bucky?" Really, he didn't need the clarification, but it was in the air anyway.

Tony nodded slowly, his goatee rubbing into Steve's skin. "You got through to him. You know you can get him back. None of us are injured or laid up, so you could afford to take the time away."

Steve fought against sighing and lost, the sound sad and resigned in a way he hoped Tony didn't take personally. "I'm not sure chasing him would be the smartest move I could make." Steve told him heavily, considering his words. "Bucky's been a prisoner..."

"Having been imprisoned myself for a while there," Tony spoke with a false lightness that dropped Steve's heart through the floor, "being chased by someone who loved me was what brought me home."

Steve took a slow, cautious breath, the questions he still had about the slow trek through the desert building up against his throat. "I've always wondered how you came back, how you managed to get to me."

"I'm a stubborn son of a bitch. The fight, the flight, and the crash weren't the worst part. The worst part was getting out of the suit and burying it behind me. JARVIS and I have joked in the past that there must have been something I blew myself up with that would leave enough of a trace to be used as a tracker. I wasn't sure then. Still haven't checked to make sure. But I got myself out a prison and into a grave."

Steve swallowed thickly, relaxing each muscle in turn until he didn't feel like he was about to launch into fight or flight. "How long were you walking in that desert?"

"Days. Maybe a week. I don't know. Tried to limit my movement to the dusk at first, then realized that if I was still being looked for, they wouldn't be able to find me like that. I had to hope I beat the heat. I was drowned by them. Mutilated. And the hardest part was wondering if I'd killed them just to die as alone as I've been my whole life."

Steve couldn't hear any more, wrapping his arms around Tony and turning, dumping him against the bed and resting his weight on either side of his glowing chest.

Tony's hands fluttered, then settled on his shoulders, palms cupped around the twin curves of bone. "The Chitauri portal was like that, too." Tony admitted, "Trying to phone Pepper with a nuke on my back," Tony's eyes were miles and years away, "just to hear the voice of someone who might've loved me."

"She loved you then. She still loves you now, just the same as you love her." Steve sounded as if he'd been gargling glass, and Tony ran the backs of his knuckles over his side, blinking back into himself and offering a quirk of a smile. "I love you, too."

"I know. You're pretty transparent about it." Steve couldn't summon a smile for him, and Tony nodded to himself, shifting under Steve like he was about to run for it if he could get the room to take off.

"I never thought to wonder which is worse. I went down with Peggy's voice in my ear..."

"I ended up with your voice in my head up there-" Steve flinched at that, and Tony hushed him, "It wasn't that. I didn't hear that."

"I shouldn't have said-"

"Steve, you said Stark Tower was that big ugly building in New York. We were both exposed nerves to each other."

"I shouldn't have been-"

"I know which of my parents I take after. You woke up in this world alone, and here I am, a walking reminder. I didn't know that SHIELD had put on some half-assed rouse, but I should have known that you weren't about to be okay just from the data available to me."

"Pretty sure you didn't expect me to be rude."

"I knew you were four-hundred pounds of fight-me in a hundred-pound container until the army managed to make a little more room. But only a little." Tony chuckled, his thumb tracing over the line of Steve's jaw to his chin, "You have a mouth on you, Rogers. It's one of my favourite features."

Steve went red, and Tony grinned with such a patina of wickedness that Steve groaned, dropping his head to hide in Tony's shoulder.

"We're here now. It doesn't matter any more."

"What are your nightmares?" Steve asked, muffled, and wishing he could keep himself from asking.

"Seeing you...all of you. Hurt-dying-and I could have stopped all of it."

"You are not the one that needs to save us all, Tony." Steve murmured softly.

"Does it matter. If it happened, I-"

"It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. I won't let it happen, none of us will. It doesn't fall to one of us; that's the point of the team, Tony."

"I thought it was to keep a leash on me."

Steve snorted at that, forcing himself to let go of it for now because he would have Tony, could take his time and didn't have to know it all-not right now, "Yeah, like that's a plan that would work."

Tony grinned rakishly, darting up viper-fast to steal a kiss, opening his legs to hook around Steve's waist and winding his arms around Steve's shoulders, "You know me so well."

Ducking down, Steve pressed kisses along the tendons of Tony's neck, aching with how thankful he was to feel the pulse of blood and flood of warmth of life against his skin. Practically purring as Tony pulled through Steve's hair, Steve licked along the curve of his collarbones, sucking at the soft of his shoulder just hard enough to turn the skin red, Tony humming under his breath as he rocked his hips up slowly. Wrapping his hand around the back of Tony's knee, Steve hitched his leg over his hips and teased Tony into a kiss. Tony was warm now, his touches fleeting in a way that made Steve whimper as they traced over the dip in muscles of his shoulder, playing along Steve's ribs, down his side to his hip. Tony sighed, head leaned back so that Steve could lick and nip at his neck and the soft under his jaw. The stubble rubbing at his lips sent a tingling burn through his mouth, and Steve sucked in a breath as he rocked down against Tony. Steve pressed his hand against Tony's lower back to press him up into the next slow roll of his hips, and Tony twitched, moaning. "Would you come with me?"

"Why would you want me to?" Tony asked, sounding utterly lustful, and Steve stopped rolling his hips and rolled them, Tony's hands taking his weight on either side of Steve's head.

"Because I love you. And I need you."

Tony hesitated before dropping down to kiss him, pressing his eyes closed like he was trying to imprint their kisses on his incredible brain. "You don't need me, Steve."

"Fight me." Steve goaded, and Tony laughed, shaking his head as he licked along Steve's bottom lip and kissed him so deeply that Steve's toes actually curled. The scratch of the goatee against Steve's skin as he sucked a line between Steve's pectorals, tonguing along the line he made then following it downwards until Steve groaned and half-bucked when the line ended at his navel. "That all you got?" Steve breathed, "I can do this all day."

Tony's dark laugh rumbled down Steve's spine like thunder, and he felt himself light up like a live wire. "I love you." Tony mouthed against his abs, without a whisper of sound behind it, but Steve heard it anyway.

The question he wouldn't let himself ask was pressing against his throat, nearly choking him as Tony slid further down and did something clever with his tongue. Pressing his eyes closed, Steve refused to imagine what a life growing old married to Tony would look like. Would it make a difference to them if he managed to ask? Steve could foresee things going horribly for them if he asked and got turned down. Not because he would want them to, but simply because they would. There was no way for them not to change if he asked that question; for the better or the worse.

He wanted to marry Tony, but he wasn't sure why it was so important to him. He adored Tony, and that wasn't going to change with any kind of ceremony, but he felt like marrying Tony would be something that changed their relationship.

"I love you." Tony mouthed against his hipbone, and Steve shivered, his legs falling open so that he could bend his knees, moving his lover so that he was enthroning Tony between the hard muscle of his thighs and the soft skin of his navel. Steve cradled Tony's thighs in his hands, letting out a slow breath as Tony traced along the lines of his chest. "You're the love of my life."

"Tony..." Steve sighed, biting into his lower lip as Tony leaned forwards and licked into his mouth. He let himself lose what he was about to finally ask, accusing himself of being a chicken even while melting into the smooth press of their mouths. Tony did some shivering of his own as Steve ran his fingers over a scar that had nerve damage beneath it. Steve sucked on Tony's lower lip and nipped it, tracing his thumbnail up his spine as he did. Tony leaned up, the flex of his thighs on either side of Steve's waist a squeeze of pressure that sent a thrill through Steve, the promise of more to come making his mouth go dry. Tony finally had to stop kissing him to actually look for the lube, and Steve latched onto his neck, the groan he received making him grin around his mouthful of skin. Pinching his nipple hard enough that Steve had to stop sucking a bruise into Tony's neck to moan, Tony let out a ridiculous victory cry as he managed to find the tube he was looking for, leaning back against Steve's thighs again to thoroughly remove himself from the range of that lust-swollen mouth. "Let me." Steve panted, reaching for the lube, and Tony moved it away, tsking at him as he shifted his legs wider, Steve's cock pressing against his exposed hole with that one, small change. Tony popped the lid open, slicking his own fingers before rocking up on his knees to reach back and open himself. Steve let out a broken sound of arousal as Tony wrapped his hand around his own cock, rocking back and forth between the two points of stimulation. Reaching down, Steve pressed his fingertip against the slick and feeling himself get harder at the sound Tony made with that pressure.

It was rushed and frantic, but Steve made damn sure that he wasn't about to hurt Tony, taking his wrists in one hand to stop him, sliding his own fingers into the slick and feeling his skin get tight at the give of Tony's body, to the point where Tony practically deflated over him as he bore into Tony's prostate until Tony's cock was slicked more with precome than lube, dripping against Steve's skin. "Steve...Steve, please just fuck me already." Tony managed, voice hoarse as he rocked down on Steve's fingers helplessly. "Oh god." Tony whimpered as Steve withdrew his fingers, Tony's nails left cresent moons in Steve's shoulders as Tony pushed onto him, a look of bliss on his features as he mouthed the mantra again.

"Do you have any idea what it'd be like for me if this never happened? Who I'd be now? Lost here, expected to be someone I'm not." Steve told him, words coming from nowhere even while he thrust into Tony. "I'd be lost without you."

"Steve, please-"

"I'm not leaving you. I will fight whatever I have to, including you, every day that I draw breath to be with you." Steve told him, pulling Tony against him tight and locking him there, stopping the rock of his hips while he clung to Tony. "Stop."

Tony clung back just as hard, and Steve sat up with Tony in his arms, cradling them around his waist and shaking with him. "I can't stop. You and I never should have worked."

"We do anyway. You're a stubborn son of a bitch, and I won't back down."

Tony rested his forehead against Steve's, curling his fingers into Steve's hair. Steve kissed him slowly, only stopping to meet Tony's eyes, gaze steady as Tony read everything he could in Steve's face. Slowly they started moving again, the slow stretch of it as sweet as pulled taffy, murmurs passed between them more breathlessly than normal even when they were having the most athletic sex they could. Tony shuddered into his orgasm like he was being taken by surprise, head falling back and mouth open silently in pleasure. Steve slowed and stopped, tucking Tony's face into his neck and holding him tightly, still hard but uncaring about anything but the shake in Tony's hands. Stilling the idle rock of Tony's hips down on him, Steve rolled them so that they laid on their sides, kissing Tony as he opened his mouth to say something, just to silence his head with the cataclysmic whirl of thought sweeping through it. Tony got the hint, closing his eyes as he brushed his thumb idly over Steve's cheek, breathing slowly and deeply.

"Will you run away with me?" Steve asked, kissing over his face.

"Where?"

"Let's take the bikes, and go exploring."

"And if we stumble over a one-armed bandit along the way..." Tony teased, and Steve shook his head.

"I think Bucky needs to come to me, not have me chasing him. Rhodey saved you, but Bucky isn't Bucky right now, and making him feel trapped would be as ill-advised as trapping you. So let's go."

Tony brushed over his shoulder back and forth, his eyes calculating. "Where to first?"

Steve Ibeamed/I, the expression so radiant that Tony's breath caught a little. "Let's go West, then go South from there."

"Mm, that sounds good." Tony hummed, a honest smile lighting him up in return, "Think we can leave the children in charge?"

"Ugh, they are not our children," Steve groaned, dropping his head to Tony's chest and letting out a whine as he shook his head.

"It's Yours, Mine and Ours. Nat and Bruce are mine. Clint and Coulson are yours. Thor is the uncle who inexplicably moved in and won't leave."

Steve was laughing helplessly, still shaking his head. "How did I get Clint?"

"He seems less inclined to shoot you." Tony explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's a part of parenting not to be shot, I'm told."

Tony was grinning, pressing kisses along Steve's neck, down his shoulder to his chest. Nudging Steve onto his back once more, Tony slid between his legs, licking his lips before sucking the head of Steve's cock into his mouth. "We'll drive off into the sunset together." Tony hummed, chuckling and making Steve's back arch with the vibration. "Think I can convince you-oh-to wear leather and jeans?"

Tony pulled off with a vulgar pop, his dark eyes dancing, "You want to see me in leather?"

"Yes." Steve answered almost mindlessly, eyes blown as he stared at Tony's swollen mouth. "I want to see you grinning and relaxed and so utterly at ease that no one but us would know it was you."

"That does sound promising." Tony purred, licking from root to tip before swallowing him whole.

"W-We could sleep under the stars in the desert and-" Steve cut off, moaning as he came, his entire train of thought derailed.

Tony prowled up Steve's body, and the taste of himself on Tony's tongue was enough to drive another thrill of want through him. "I've never done that. Just left, for the sake of the adventure." Steve pulled him into another slow kiss, flipping them so that his body spread over Tony's, his weight held off enough so that he didn't feel like he was about to crush the love of his life. "I never...stopped-not before you. I was always working, even when I was playing."

"Especially when you were playing," Steve murmured, kissing him again, soft as silk and fleeting as cotton candy, "your brain doesn't slow, I know that."

"No." Tony told him, voice level as Steve paused in his trek across the plane of Tony's shoulder, "I didn't stop. Then you came along, with your art and your lack of pop culture and made me stop so I was enjoying it all with you."

"Why would you only stop for me?"

"Because enjoying things with you is more interesting than doing anything else."

"Even when it's modern art?"

The laughter stretched between them, curled up together happily in a quiet that was too precious to break.


	14. Chapter 14

Steve was throwing punches perhaps harder than he should be throwing them at that speed. He was angry more at himself than he was at anything else, and the ache travelling up his arms from his bloodied knuckles to settle into his shoulders was well-deserved.

His ears were still ringing with their shouting match, and the image of Tony's face was imprinted on his eyelids. Steve hit the bag a few more times, the argument still ringing in his ears, and decided all at once that he wasn't angry at himself after all; he was rightfully angry at the love of his life, and he would let himself be angry, dammit.

"Shield brother!" Thor called, and Steve didn't flinch, but it was a near thing. "I have heard that there has been strife in my absence. I wished to ask if you would like to spar."

Steve straightened, turning to look at Thor, standing there with a solemnity that didn't belong on his affable face. "I...I'd like that, thank you." Steve found himself saying without his brain's direct input. Then again, his brain needed to have no input right now. The fight had started because his brain hadn't been able to keep from replaying, over and over, the latest series of events that had left Tony Stark without his suit in enemy clutches, soundtracked with the knowledge that Steve had been left out of Tony's problems, of Tony's plans, and had faced Tony's wrath when he'd accidentally foiled them trying to save Tony's life.

He stepped into the ring with Thor, their hands securely in mitts; Steve in a helmet and outfitted with a mouth guard. Steve had learned that he had to take this precautions; fighting Thor hand-to-hand was much like fighting the thugs in every back alley sprayed with his blood in New York in his bad old days. Tony was going to be pissed at what he'd already done to his hands; fighting with Thor would only make that pinch to his mouth tighter, and Steve revelled in the bait of it, because he was still so angry.

Thor was not about to ask him about the fight, he knew. Thor wouldn't acknowledge it past the mention of strife. But as they circled each other and then started swinging, Steve found himself talking.

"It's not that he put himself in this situation to fucking begin with. It's that he didn't tell me, and then got angry when I didn't know." Thor landed a punch to his ribs that had him wheezing, but he swept himself upwards, grabbing Thor's massive arm and twisting until the demi-god doubled.

"Tactically, would it not make sense to be captured?"

Steve grit his teeth, knowing full well that he was meant to be the tactical mind, and resenting the expectation that he was meant to keep that tactical mind with Tony's life hanging in the balance. "He could have told me he was aiming to be caught by AIM."

"Your anger makes you sloppy, Steve." Thor noted, rolling out of Steve's grip and landing another hit to Steve's abdomen, nearly taking him off his feet. "And Anthony's entire life has been played out without the benefit of brothers-in-arms before us; it is not unsurprising that for a man whose life has played out alone, he does not always think to depend on those who make sure he is no longer alone."

At that, Steve paused. The hesitation caused Thor to flip him onto the mat, crouching when he took in the look on Steve's face. "What do you mean, his life was played out alone? He had Peggy, he had Rhodey and Pepper-" Thor's expression turned to one of something akin to pity, and he offered Steve his hand up, settling back into a fighting stance rather than fully pausing; understanding that Steve's body needed motion while his mind took in the information given to him.

"When he was first back from his desert trials, he was not able to look for others' aid. The valiant James and courageous Pepper could not offer support of their arms when Anthony was discovering who he was meant to become. They were not with him when he was fighting to find a way to fight. These were the most important fights, because they were the ones which taught him about how he could pick up his arms."

Steve knew he wasn't his usual graceful self as he threw a punch and Thor caught him, throwing him against the ropes, "They were with him-"

"Not when he became a hero. They were with him after he'd made his choice, a choice that he partook alone."

Steve lolled against the ropes, then stood tall, "He knows he has us. All of us."

"But how long has he had us? How many times has he been let down by us?" Steve hesitated again, and Thor lifted and slammed him against the mats, "How long has he had to rely on his own plans? How long has he had to rely on nothing but himself? Even in my earliest days, I had my brother. Anthony has never had anything. It is a hard life, a warrior's life. Harder still to be a warrior with no second. The Colonel Rhodes was there as much as he could be; but it does not change that he couldn't be there always." Steve stumbled back, looking Thor up and down as he panted, "I say this not to diminish your anger, but to be sure that you know all the truth there is to know. He is a difficult shield brother, and you are more than that. The care I feel for the Lady Jane would not assuaged were I to have suffered this as you have. But that does not discount the tale behind the choice. And for this tale, I thought it best you hear it from someone apart from your anger."

"We-I've failed him in the past, but..."

"You didn't fail him. None of us did. We simply failed to be there."

"How is that any different?"

"You or I would call upon our brothers, our friends, to aid us. When has Anthony called upon us, when we were not already standing by his side?"

"He should be smarter than that." Steve hissed, gritting his teeth.

"There is a difference between intelligence born of learnedness, and intelligence born of instinct. Instinct wins out more often than not in the heat of a threat, and did not his enemy Stane first declare himself an ally? Those who fight with Anthony are not always worthy of his trust, even us."

Using a move that Natasha had taught him, Steve used Thor's own centre of gravity against him, swinging him down onto the mat and landing on top of him, twisting an arm behind his back. "So what would you have me do, Thor?"

"I have no ground on which to ask you do anything, Steve. I merely wish to put into perspective what would not be obvious in the fires of anger and frustration."

"Did you ever think you'd end up playing moderator?"

Thor huffed a deep laugh, "No. My blood runs all too hot. Loki was much more suited to moderation; too calculating to be rash in his advice."

"And look where we are now. Loki chose to try to kill you and everything else, and you're talking me through a fight with Tony like you were born to do it."

Thor sighed, and Steve sat against the ropes, knees pulled up as he stared into space and thought about all that Thor had said. "I do not mean to interfere; your anger is yours to have. But the love you have for Anthony needs a champion, and I am happy to offer what I can."

"What did you tell him?"

"I have not yet spoken to Anthony, nor do I intend to as yet; the good Natasha has stepped in on your behalf with him, and she knows more about being alone against the world than any but Tony in this family of ours."

Steve swallowed, considering what it would be like for any other member of the team to have done what Tony had, and knew that if it had been anyone else, he would not have gotten so out of control. "It's foolish of me, to let my feelings in."

"It's more foolhardy to deny them." Thor replied immediately, "There is no shame in your love, Steve, and it does not affect the rest of us. The only time it is an obstacle is if you allow it to become one. You can no more fall out of love with Anthony than you would give up having his back at every moment you are able."

Steve let his head loll around to look at Thor, "How long would you give it before Natasha's done with him?"

"Join me for a mead, and we shall know the extent of Natasha's patience in guiding Anthony through the turmoil of his feelings."

Steve laughed, clapping his hand into Thor's and allowing himself to be hauled to his feet. "Thanks for the perspective."

"You and Anthony have helped to guide me through my courtship; and sometimes the people with the best view are the people furthest from the action."

"I feel like that's something Clint would say."

"Aye, it may be." Thor chuckled, looking concerned as Steve gingerly took the padding and the bloodied wrappings from his hands. "You do yourself injury to contain your anger. My anger flares much too close to the surface as well. I understand you, Steve. We must find a way to control our rare bouts of rage, as there is room only for one giant green rage monster in our band."

They exited the workout room, and nearly walked into Sam and Clint. "What about our rage monster?" Clint asked, blinking in an owlish way that spoke of hangover at two in the afternoon.

"I'm not allowed to turn green." Steve answered easily.

"The last time you turned green was after getting hit with that ultrasonic frequency that fucked with your inner ears, and you tossed your cookies for like five hours straight." Sam's eyes narrowed, looking from Steve to Clint, and Clint shrugged, "I couldn't hear it. I'm hearing impaired. I've been reading lips for the last two years, 'cause I don't remember where the fuck I put my hearing aids."

Steve tilted his head, looking like he was about to punch Clint in the jaw for a minute, "I thought Tony made you new ones."

"He did." Clint replied, voice light and airy, and Steve took a deep breath, closing his eyes like he was praying for patience, "They were great. No idea where they ended up after the Warriors Three came for that dinner party and we ended up being mugged."

"How does this happen to you people?!" Sam shouted, and Clint flinched slightly, pressing a finger to his lips.

"You don't have to yell. I actually heard that one. It's ouchie in my frontal lobe."

"What did you do?" Steve finally convinced himself it was a good idea to ask.

"I did shots with a tiny, old Chinese lady, and I do not know what we were taking shots of, but that was four days ago, and I'm just sobering up now." The matter-of-fact way that Clint said it made Steve want to bang his head against something solid, because this was depressingly par for the course, and he really wished it wasn't. "You don't want to know how I met the tiny Chinese lady. You're better off not knowing."

Sam raised a hand like he had an answer in class, "I've learned enough to know that I don't want to know the answer and should not ask the question."

"You are a fast learner..." Clint praised, laughing.

"Didn't Tony also make you something like six back-up copies?" Steve wished it had seemed less ridiculous at the time, because if Tony found out, the "I told you so" would go on for a month.

Clint moved forward, waving his fingers in a quelling motion as if catching words from the air in front of Steve's mouth, "Shhh, no more words."

Laughing helplessly, Sam clapped Steve on the back, "Where you two headed?"

"For mead and waiting out whether or not Natasha will kill Tony." Steve answered, and Sam shot him a pitying look, "Wanna join?"

"Mead is the one thing you can get drunk on, isn't it?"

"Yep." Steve replied, sounding dejected. "Clint, don't let me get drunk."

"You should not have this faith in me, Cap." Clint laughed, shaking his head, "And why the hell would you not want to get drunk?"

"Tony and I have to actually make up before we can have make up sex. Being sober for that would be a good idea." Clint and Sam were both wearing identical expressions of disgust, Thor laughing jovially behind them as they started towards the communal kitchen. "Also, I hate leaving Tony to deal with me when I get drunk."

"God, you're too good a boyfriend. Coulson's had to piggyback me through a wedding reception because I would not stop dancing otherwise."

"Whose wedding was this?"

"Phil's sister's." Clint replied, "Now ask who got me drunk."

Steve sighed, "Who got you drunk?"

"Phil's mother!"

Steve was not in the least surprised by this. Phil's family was wildly bad influences, he'd quickly learned during his trip to meet the insane lot of them. "This is not at all surprising." Steve sighed.

"You almost sound like you wish it was!" Clint accused, dropping his hands to his hips and settling into his sassiest pose.

Thor laughed, slapping Clint's shoulder and nearly knocking him over from the force of it. Sam shook his head at Steve as if blaming him for getting inducted into this crazy. Steve didn't even bother to acknowledge that accusation, rolling his eyes as he pulled down the flagons required for consumption of mead. Clint started to whistle a jaunty tune, pulling out the makings for soft pretzels. Clint's aptitude for baking should not have surprised Steve, but had done. Clint was not your usual baker; he followed no recipe but his instinct and a general idea of what might work out. When Steve had learned culinary arts from his mother, he'd learned that baking was precision and measurement; cooking was the forgiving art. Clint did not ever appear to measure, though Tony seemed to think he did. Steve was inclined to believe him; he remembered the day he and Natasha had come in from an obstacle course that was mind-bogglingly difficult to find Bruce using Tony as a stand for winding yarn as Clint baked his way through eight dozen cookies, which seemed to have Tony hypnotized. Steve had only ever seen Tony that still when he was in a state of unconsciousness that was rare enough Steve had only ever seen it twice. Tony had claimed that that was an observation session and not a concession to Bruce's demand that if Tony wanted a new scarf and matching hat, he'd have to help Bruce in the making, one way or another.

"Why you leaving Tony to the ruthless redhead?" Sam asked, cocking an eyebrow at Steve as Thor brought down a jug that Sam seemed to be smart enough to instinctively be worried about.

"Because I'm angry at him for putting himself in harm's way-again-and he probably needs to cool off, too." Steve answered easily, pouring himself a draught of the odd amber liquid that seemed to shimmer.

"And that's why your hands look like minced meat?" Sam's voice was easy, unassuming, as if he wasn't taking everything in with the training the VA had afforded him.

"Steve is a good warrior; his passions run hot, and to be still is akin to going backwards when the blood flows fast." Thor told Sam, almost scolding, "The time for talk needs to come on its own; the time to fight comes first."

"Some anger can't be gotten out in a sparring ring, or against a bag. And that anger is never good when doused with alcohol." Sam replied, voice measured. "I've seen that far too much not to be concerned."

Thor looked thoughtful, straightening, "You mean to say that there are times when the heat of battle is taken home. I have known warriors who've suffered this; do not mistake my offer of libation for a lapse of judgement. My brothers-in-arms are as much my kin as my mother; I will protect them, will aid them, in keeping their safety and their sanity as much as I am able. Brother Anthony has the same warrior's blood, and never would he be threatened by his love."

Steve was quiet, considering the soft pink flecks of shimmer in the liquid; the aroma like a well-made hot cider. Sam's gaze had remained on him throughout Thor's declaration, but Steve felt no compulsion to add to that; no need to fill the silence that followed with his own, hollower words on the matter. Steve took a drink, the taste of it a wave of warmth breaking over him like the sun cracking through the gloom. No two people tasted the same flavours when drinking this mead; for Steve, it was as spicy as hot sauce and as smooth as silk. He'd once asked Natasha what she tasted while drinking it, and had to laugh at her taste; dark berries and and smoky finish that brought a look to her eye that spoke of wistfulness. Steve wanted to know what Tony tasted, though he'd battled against that curiosity. Tony had downloaded every Harry Potter audiobook onto his phone just in time for Natasha to demand that they marathon the movies their first Christmas as this insane family, and had immediately equated the taste of Thor's mead to the smell of Felix Felicis. He equated his flavour to kissing Tony, to jumping out of a window, knowing he'd be caught in a moment, but savouring the fall with every fibre of his being anyway.

"Wow, you just turned a colour I don't think I've ever seen before." Sam commented, voice laughing as Thor handed him a flagon and he eyed it warily.

"You only get as drunk as you want to get drunk on this stuff. In this house, that's usually very." Clint informed him, cheerful as he drank deep.

"What do you taste?" Steve asked before he could stop himself, and Thor chuckled, which itself was a low, rolling rumble like thunder in the upper atmosphere. "Sorry."

"Nah, man." Clint shrugged, "I taste...it's like cinnamon hearts and licorice. Being in the circus, Barney and I didn't get much, but what we could get those just before we left a town, sometimes. We'd sneak into a theatre loaded too full of snacks for them to insist we show our tickets, and we'd get into whatever the hell movie was showing in that podunk down of the week. Scary movies, action movies, thrillers...didn't matter, so long as Barney was there." Clint had a look in his eye that Steve had never seen before, and as he took a long pull from his flagon, Steve felt a little like he was slipping through the cracks; like he'd missed something vitally important, yet again.

"You never talk about him."

Clint shrugged fluidly, looking down at his drink with more pensiveness than Steve had seen him display when faced with the choice between a shot that not even he could be expected to make and the continued survival of Phil Coulson.

"I think we all have someone who we will not bear the thought of." Thor murmured, and a wry twist of his mouth followed immediately, a tell of who, exactly, he did not want to think about himself.

"How are you this day, Samuel?" Thor asked, his hand coming down hard enough on Sam's shoulder that it nearly put him face-first into the foam in his flagon. "Apologies."

"Nah, you'd think I'da learned by now." Sam laughed, "I'm good, man. Yourself?"

"I feel this day as though a weight is needed; a slowness. It is time that there was an end to action, that I may revel in the stillness my Lady Jane affords me." Thor answered candidly, and Steve suddenly ached for stillness; for quiet, for Tony and himself to be able to turn off the world and forget everything but each other, if only for moments.

"I'm surprised by that," Clint commented candidly, "you always seemed like you were perpetual motion to me."

"I am a man of action; before Earth, I knew naught of the pleasure to be taken in inaction; in slowness. Darcy had taken pains to introduce me to the concept." Thor allowed, and Steve fought his twitching grin, "Humans seem to have so little time, but it has taught me much about the appreciation of what time is left."

Steve stopped too suddenly to be unnoticed, and Thor turned his concerned blue eyes on Steve. Swallowing his mouthful of magic and trying to ground himself in the feelings that taste brought forth, Steve studied his hands until it was clear the others weren't about to pass it off, "There...is a fear I have. The serum is strange; and we're not altogether sure what all it will do. But if it...prolongs my life, and Tony is-" Steve stopped himself with prejudice, then picked himself back up, "I hate that I could lose him to a stunt. I hate more I could outlive him anyway." Steve looked to Thor, who had always known that he and Jane were looking at severely different lifespans, "I don't know how to grapple with this, and I have no way of knowing if I'll really need to when Tony seems to throw himself on more grenades than I could ever even throw."

The silence didn't have time to tighten his throat or stab at his heart, because Thor's huge hand was dragging him into a hug, Clint's hand clapping onto his shoulder in a solid weight, Sam's eyes sad. "My friend, it is a battle we must fight every day."

"Have you talked to him about this? Or Bruce? Bruce could probably run some tests to find out about the life expectancy." Clint offered, and their conversation was a ghost in his gaze.

"I'm not sure I want to know, to be honest." Steve murmured, wrapping both hands around his flagon, "What if I have to lose him?"

"Any relationship ends up in either break up or death, Steve. It's a little late to break up with him if you really can't handle the other one." Sam told him, voice utterly level. Steve winced at that thought, frowning deeply. "What's Tony's fear?" The question had no doubts behind it that Steve knew what Tony's fears were.

"That we'll all die...and he could've saved us, if only he'd tried harder."

"Hm...sounds familiar." Clint commented lightly, gaze shifting to Sam with such knowing that Steve couldn't help a wave of resentment.

"I recognize that tree." Sam agreed, "You two are the big bads in charge. Thor even has the Warriors Three. But you two idiots think it's all up to your sorry butts."

"Samuel is accurate in his assessment. I was never alone against my foes; Anthony and yourself have had to be alone in standing between the world you protect and its end."

"N-"

"The one-armed bandit and Rhodes don't count, Steve. Not really." Clint sighed, crossing his arms over his chest, "You climbed onto that plane alone, and he may have gotten Pepper to blow up the arc reactor, but it was just him standing between the War Monger and the screaming public. You had help getting there, both of you, but you didn't really have that much help when it came down to it."

"You must speak of your worries, Steve. The Lady Jane and I share ours, and are the better for it."

Steve's head swivelled as if pulled by gravity as the main elevator opened and Natasha and Tony came out arguing in what sounded like Greek. They paused in unison, with nearly the same facial expressions, to take in the collection of men with Asgardian alcohol. "Well, that's not good." Tony sighed finally, his eyes flashing from Steve's hands around the glossy, dark pottery, jumping from Clint's floury handprint on his shoulder to the dark, measuring gaze of Sam. "We'll finish this later." Tony told Natasha with a high, false levity; slipping back into the elevator just in time for the doors to slide closed once more.

Natasha looked like a completely exasperated older sister as she put her hands on her hips and tilted her head at the group at the bar, "Really, Clint? A tiny Chinese woman drank you under the table and you only just managed to drag yourself out from under it, I tell you to go help Steve, and you choose mead?"

"It was Thor, not me!" Clint argued, looking like a chastised little boy far too much for comfort.

Natasha rolled her eyes, shifting from hands on hips to arms crossed and lips pursed. "Steve, I heard from him why he was an idiot. Now I want to hear from you."

"Why he was an idiot?" Steve asked as if confirming, the very picture of innocence.

"Sure, let's start there." Natasha acquiesced, and Steve and Clint both blinked at her dumbly while Sam smothered chortling into his mead. "What part of the idiocy caused this particular round of explosives?"

"I don't want to lose him."

"And this helps?" Natasha asked the moment his words hit open air, and Steve felt like the chastised little boy now.

"You had Pepper have an Avenger babysitter-"

"Pepper does not put on actual armour and fight actual lunatics, she just wears deadly shoes and uses them as threats while she cajoles them into creating some new patents for her. You told Tony that if he wanted so badly to go off and do his own thing, then he might as well consider himself off the team. Which is not a sentiment Bruce or I appreciated, just FYI."

Steve flinched at the words slung back at him, and heard Thor hiss. "He can't keep doing this-"

"Neither can you." Natasha cut him off. "He was an idiot, yes; but you, too, Steven Grant Rogers, have been known to have been an idiot yourself more than a little." Natasha paused, brow cocked as if daring him to argue. No argument was forthcoming, because Steve knew better than to try. "Now, he's ready to talk to you-he was ready to talk to you. He knows he'll get his head smashed in if he does it again. But you've got some things to apologize for and to fucking well talk to him about, or so help me, Steve, I haven't even begun to come up with what I'll do to you if you wreck this and leave him with Pepper."

Steve could see the twitch at the corner of her mouth, and took his cue to get his ass into the elevator, Clint saluting him with a carrot stick as Phil slid into his spot at their impromptu bar.

Natasha's hand caught the elevator door from closing, and she slid forward, eyes sad, "I know what it's like to be afraid of outliving everyone you love. I can never understand what it's really like, but would it really be worth it if you were to divide, and have to watch him die anyway?"


	15. Chapter 15

It wasn't common for Hulk to put in an appearance in the suite that had been Steve's, now their artist retreat.

Steve had to bite a hole in his lip to keep from laughing as he rounded the corner to find Hulk strewn with a glittery red wool that Bruce had been trying to make Natasha a cowl in. It seemed that there had been some "un-knitting" going on, and the look of frustration on Hulk's features was enough to tell Steve that interference was required. "Hey, Hulk," Steve greeted evenly, grinning as he sidled into the room, "wanna come watch Wall-E with Dummy, You, Butterfingers and me?"

Hulk swatted the mass of yarn from himself, looking perturbed but not explosively so.

"If you join us, it ups my chances of getting Shrek in the lineup." Steve baited, and Hulk shot him an unimpressed look, but got to his feet, broken knitting needles falling to the floor tangled in the half-knit part of the knotted mess. From the other side of the apartment, Steve heard the elevator arrive, and knew immediately who it'd be when instead of joining him to deal with the "potential threat" Hulk had the capacity to pose, the steps went to his own corner, picking up his abandoned paintbrushes in order to wash them off and store them properly.

"Hey, handsome, you coming down to the lab to help me destroy some neutered Doombots?" Tony called, "Or you gonna go be lame and watch cartoons?"

Hulk snorted at the implication the offered cartoons were lame, and Tony came to stand beside Steve, hands in his pockets.

Steve had to fight harder than ever as he glanced at Tony, still in a three-piece suit that Steve had wanted to both strip off him and keep him in always. He was too pristine still for Pepper to have let him out of the office, so he figured the Hulk alert had probably felt like a godsend. "Well, we're watching Wall-E with Dummy and the guys, so you're going to have to deal with the lame cartoons anyway, you fake."

"Fake?!"

"Like you didn't tear up at the end of Wreck-It Ralph last week, Tony. You cannot hide from us. We know these things." Steve replied simply, both he and Hulk straightening and crossing their arms over their chests in a unison that spoke of too much time spent together.

"Fine, but I was not the one singing 'Let It Go' while we were fighting the Jotuns last week."

"That was Clint!" Steve protested as Hulk laughed, Thor's glass sculptures distantly ringing with the vibration.

"Oh right; _your_ song was 'You'll Be In My Heart'-you utter _sap_."

Hulk was giggling, which set Steve off, and Tony just leaned back and watched the two of them in the vicious cycle they felt into trying to stop laughing and just making it harder for the other to stop.

Hulk finally sat heavily, and Steve was bent double to try to catch his breath. "I needed that." Steve managed finally, looking up at Tony beside him, "And what's your song, Tony?"

"Why, the only song befitting my dastardly name: 'Zero to Hero'. Though you are the living embodiment of Disney's take on Hercules."

"The magic potion made me stronger, not just this side of mortal." Steve replied, grinning wolfishly because Tony probably had no idea he'd actually gotten to that section of the Disney catalogue, but he'd been lonely during one of Tony's increasingly rare solo jaunts out of town, and the only remedy that had appealed was locking himself in the workshop with the bots and watching cartoons, which Dummy adored. Hulk was disentangling himself from the yarn that he'd sat in, and Steve took the chance to slide close and drop his voice as low as Tony would be able to hear, "And I'd make a joke about being your favourite flavour, but then we may never get Bruce back."

Tony shot him a look of such ire that Steve started laughing again, harder this time, the colour of Tony's ears going dark as he did. "I hate you so much right now, Steve."

"No, you don't." Steve replied, grinning cheekily. "C'mon, let's go watch some movies. I'll even make popcorn in the hot-air popper."

Tony rolled his eyes, but turned to waggle his eyebrows at Hulk, waving him forward towards a hidden lift in the Tower that was for Avenger (Hulk) use only. Hulk walked forward, the impact of the footfalls on Tony's reinforced floors causing barely a rattle through the apartment. Steve grinned at Tony as they drew into the lift after Hulk, and the eye roll he got in return-over dramatic and impossibly fond all at once-was enough to make Steve's tactical hindbrain kick into overdrive with plans to arrange the seating arrangement so that Tony and he could cuddle. "Hey, Hulk, don't let Dummy bully you into oiling him; he's been thoroughly dosed, they all have."

Hulk snorted, the look of mirth in his eyes fond, even as Steve bit down on a wince at the memory of the last time Hulk had indulged Dummy, and it had taken hours in a scalding shower to get the evidence off of his and Tony's skin. That night had not been a good one; Steve had gotten out of the shower sweating, and had kicked off his blankets as a result. The cold had seeped into his bones, of course; and he'd woken shuddering hard enough that it had woken Tony, who had been trying to wake him in return. They'd wrapped around each other under the blankets once Steve had calmed the shaking, but neither of them were going to sleep after that. Steve was thankful that he didn't wake violently from those nightmares, as Tony woke from his own. They'd never had a problem, but Steve had heard the story of why Tony hadn't wanted to sleep in the same bed with him and had immediately known how he'd be able to help in ways that Pepper couldn't.

"Yeah, you spoiled brats; daddy's home and he's been gang-pressed into a movie night!" Tony announced to the lab, and Hulk snickered at him as he followed, beelining to help Dummy with getting his movie-watching apparatus set up. You and Butterfingers chattered to each other as they went over to the strange near-kitchen Tony had put in, Steve stepping between them as they seemed to get into an argument over whose popcorn bowl was better.

"We'll need both anyway." Steve grabbed them up, and reached into the mini-fridge to grab out the butter while You dragged what was essentially an industrial-sized hot-air popper from the corner it was tucked into. Armed with two bowls of buttery goodness, Steve joined Tony and Hulk in their home theatre section of the workshop; the couch old and fatty but ludicrously comfortable, and Hulk's fort of blankets and pillows nestled beside it. Tony was sitting in the corner of the couch, dark eyes sparkling as he took the bowl of popcorn from him, and Steve twitched an eyebrow, smirking as he slid into place against Tony's side, cuddling into him and sighing happily. Tony's arm wrapped tight around him, and Steve sighed into his chest, closing his eyes. He relaxed into the embrace, letting himself be soothed by the gentle pull of Tony's hand in his hair, the crunch of Hulk devouring his popcorn, and the muted skitters and whines of the bots settling in around them to watch the movie.

Hulk liked the bots, and You seemed to have a soft spot for both Hulk and Bruce that seemed to have taken JARVIS by surprise. Steve experienced the same strangely preferential treatment from Dummy, and had been more alarmed by it than Hulk ever was, though Bruce was reticent about getting close to the bot. Steve understood, after a fashion; Bruce had made very few relationships in his life as it was, and the Avengers had rather kidnapped him into their family more than having given him an actual choice. That they'd then proven themselves to be people who knew they could trust him, whom he could trust back, had cemented the bond. Bruce didn't want to be in any kind of a relationship with someone who the other guy could break; even if the other guy had shown no sign of ever coming close to hurting them. Steve didn't really understand; for most of his life, he was the one that was most likely to end up broken, after all—but he could empathize with the feeling that you had to keep apart, for the safety of the others. After the fiasco on the Helicarrier, Steve had been kept apart from the others, after a fashion. He'd learned during those lonely days that he wasn't very good at creating relationships; at playing well with others who hadn't grown up with him or fought through half of HYDRA beside him. He'd alienated Tony, and in doing so, he'd caused problems between himself and Bruce, put a friction into his interactions with Natasha, and had shown Thor that he quite possibly wasn't a worthy leader. Bruce's greatest ally and best friend of all of them was Tony, and though Bruce and Hulk both seemed to have forgiven him, Steve caught himself wondering from time to time if Bruce and he would have had a stronger relationship if Steve hadn't lost it that day.

He'd once been told by a general visiting the camp to survey the troops brought back from the HYDRA facility that he could not get too close to the men who were not yet in his command, or he would lose his edge to the emotion of losing men. Steve had thought it was crap, but that didn't stop him from wondering, and even pulling away from the Commandos on their first run out of the gate. Jim Morita had put the kibosh on that faster than Dugan could down a fifth of scotch; sitting Steve down and telling him that he was only moderately their commander and if he fucked it up as badly as their last commander—who had run, screaming, to leave his men to die in HYDRA hands—then Steve needed to recruit another pack of assholes. They didn't need a commander who was cold and calculating; raiders never did. They needed someone who would sing the bawdy songs they made up on the spot with them, and let them make their own dangerous decisions. Ever since then, Steve had done his damnedest not to be a commander, but a leader, and had failed spectacularly in that lab.

Steve struggled to open his eyes to see the flower on the screen, and he smiled at the bot on screen, knowing that Tony would be sketching schematics for the thing once the popcorn was gone.

Steve thought back to all those stories of the future that he had loved in the old days, and had to laugh to himself at the stark contrast between the predictions of his era's leaps and bounds, and those predictions made by this era. Steve tended to find this era too bleak on their own self worth, but he'd also seen enough to know that they were likely right, with the way things had been going. His era had seen the future as a bright ray; a gift that they could pass on. This era saw that the future was turning into less and less of a gift by the day, and he promised himself he'd do everything he could to change it back. Steve didn't know quite what had happened to cause the change, but he would work for a way to fixing it.

Steve felt a pair of lips press to his hair, and he smiled to himself, staying loose and relaxed against his side. "I love you," Tony whispered to him, and Steve could only summon the energy to move his lips as if he were replying, but he knew that somehow, Tony would hear anyway. Steve sighed as he felt a gentle finger trace over his forehead, rubbing against the spot that always eased a headache, since painkillers weren't about to cut it. Steve felt a weight draping over him, and barely registered hearing Tony thank Dummy for the blanket pilfered from the cot. Hulk always left the cot alone, so that would be the only blanket free in the lab.

When Steve woke, the movie was long finished and another had started playing. Tony was asleep beneath him, but Bruce was awake and back to being Bruce. "Hey," Steve managed, and Bruce waved distractedly, "you okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Yes, because having an excuse to cuddle Tony into a state of unconsciousness is such a hardship." Steve grinned, and Bruce shook his head, smiling a little reluctantly. Steve regarded him, taking in the tightness around the edges and the slump to his shoulders, the mere fact that he was still there. "What's going on, Bruce?" The shy brown eyes startled, looking up at him, "I may not be the one you want to talk to, but I can tell there's something going on. If you're willing to talk, I'll listen."

Bruce's gaze dropped, calculations in his expression. "I...Betty and I were long over. But it never felt like I was lonely until now."

Steve was quiet for a long moment, nodding to himself before offering quietly, "It was like having a safety net, not really being sure you were done."

Bruce looked a little hunted, but he nodded.

"So the only question really is what you needed a safety net from." Steve murmured all too astutely, if the look Bruce shot him was anything to go by. Steve shrugged fluidly, and Tony snuffled, but didn't wake, "You don't have to tell me, Bruce. You can keep your secrets. But for what it's worth? You deserve to be happy, and I would be honoured if there was anything I could do to help that along."

Bruce pressed his lips into a tight line, eyes far away, considering, "I...I don't think I'm quite ready to be happy yet, Steve."

"How about comfortable? Could you try being comfortable?" Steve offered, the earnestness something he'd never hear the end about if Tony or Clint were to witness it.

"How much damage did I do?" Bruce asked, as if that had a weight that would affect his answer.

"You broke a knitting needle."

Bruce's brow furrowed, "Actually, that was what set me off."

Steve viciously stamped down on the urge to laugh, sucking in a deep breath and smiling despite himself, "My ma had much the same reaction when she'd do that."

Bruce snorted, shaking his head and pulling further into himself, running a hand through his hair, "I...was thinking about making something for..."

"Someone special." Steve supplied easily into the pause, without an ounce of judgement or coercion in his tone.

"It seems stupid. And futile. I shouldn't even try—then I realized that, in all likelihood, no one would even take it as being a try."

"Call me slow, but if you want to make something for someone who matters to you, in any capacity, what does it matter what it's taken as? You've made things for Natasha, Tony, Clint, and Thor; you create beautiful pieces of warmth for the people you love, Bruce. It's one of the kindest things I've ever seen someone do."

Bruce coloured slightly, "You doodled Ross as Polonius from Hamlet just to make me feel better about his three-hour testimony to Congress about the other guy. Tony bought a designer label in order to team up with the designers in order to build me _pants_ that could withstand the other guy. Kindness isn't rare around these parts."

"That doodle was mostly busywork to stop me from decking him." Steve admitted quietly, "And Tony...is Tony."

Bruce laughed at that summation, and Steve grinned in return, "So you were being kind to me and to Coulson, all at once."

"I do make it a goal to try to help him avoid headaches as much as possible." Steve replied angelically.

"I'm pretty sure he'd condone clocking Ross hard enough that he'd cease to exist."

Steve chuckled, and Tony groaned, stirring slightly before Steve carded his fingers through Tony's hair, rubbing with a gentle, insistent pressure that made Tony whine and then melt. Bruce looked on with an empty kind of jealousy; not wanting to take either of them, but wishing that he had what they did, from either side. Tony murmured to himself, but settled before long, and Bruce turned his attention back to the screen, ignoring it as You rested his "head" on Bruce's shoulder, camera focused on the screen. Steve settled into the silence, knowing it wouldn't last long.

He knew that the affection he and Tony shared freely and openly wasn't always regarded on the best of terms, but never had the team made Steve feel as if they were uncomfortable when Tony curled into his side like a cat, or when Steve couldn't keep his hands from folding around Tony's, or carding into Tony's hair. Steve had learned early on that Tony had never really had much affection in his life, and for whatever reason, even before he'd known that, Steve had instinctually needed to touch Tony more than he'd ever wanted to touch anyone before. It was as if Steve's hindbrain was scared that it was a dream, and as a result, Steve's fingers ached to touch him as much as possible, if only to prove to himself that, truly, his imagination wasn't strong enough to come up with someone quite like Tony Stark.

"How do I do this?" Bruce finally asked, voice soft.

"You do what you're comfortable with, Bruce." Steve shrugged. "It'll work out. I'd lay money on that."

Bruce's brows went up, a smirk curling slightly at the corner of his mouth. "I thought you weren't a betting man."

"I'm not, but I wouldn't call it a gamble, Bruce."

"You're too lovable not to be a sure thing, snookums." Tony growled, shifting slightly and snuggling into Steve. "Now hush about your love life, I want to watch the movie."

"Your eyes are closed." Bruce laughed.

"It's _Mulan_ , my honey-nut Cheerio. I don't have to see it to watch it."

"I feel like I should be concerned." Bruce mused, humming in absent appreciation as You delivered Tony's stash of Skittles into his lap.

"You probably should be." Steve concurred, stifling his laughter.

"How goes the pants, Krispie Kreme?"

"Shockingly intact, actually." Bruce replied, sounding surprised. Tony let out a sound like a giggle, and Steve couldn't bite back his grin.

"Shall I work on indestructibly stretchy shirts next?"

"How breathable would they be? The other guy runs too hot too much of the time."

"Mm, good point." Tony murmured, "Are the pants causing you to overheat?"

"No, but they end up being shorts no matter how stretchy they are."

Tony hummed, his fingers tracing idly at the small of Steve's back, even while he considered the issue. "That's a good point. Wouldn't want you running around in a midi. You have a reputation to maintain."

"And unlike your reputation, mine would not be improved by running around in a midi." Bruce commented drily.

"Hey, when you look as good as I do with your shirt off, reputation be damned, I'm showing me off."

Steve muffled his laughter into Tony's shoulder, and Tony ran his fingers through Steve's hair. "You do look very good for your age." Bruce allowed, and Tony whined, somehow managing a scowl even though his eyes were closed.

"What is with everyone and my age all of a sudden?" Tony complained, looking petulant enough to be a toddler.

"I think Clint mainly wants to know when you're going to retire so that he has a gauge of when he can retire without you calling him out on it." Bruce mused.

"How about the fourth of never? I'll take the Asgardian version of ambrosia and live forever and cackle as you all get all grey." Tony told him snappishly, but Steve continued to remind himself to relax as the thought of having Tony forever began to ricochet around his head.

"That sounds a lot like Coulson's plan."

"He's a smart man."

Steve curled his hand into the utterly rumpled dress shirt Tony still wore, forcing himself to keep his breaths even, despite the fact that Tony and Bruce were discussing the very things that most scared Steve. He knew the second that Tony shifted his hold on Steve that he knew something was wrong, though he may not know what. He didn't know how to stop it, though; didn't seen a way clear of letting Tony know what it was that made him scared enough to be unable to take the most important leap he would ever stand before.

"What about nano tech to slow the aging process?" Bruce asked, "If you could figure out something to reinforce the cell from degradation it would pretty much stop the aging process, wouldn't it?"

"Theoretically." Tony mused, "I wonder if I could build in a way to control the armour without an interface..."

"Neurological uplink?" Bruce shifted away from _Mulan_ at that, the abject intrigue in his expression telling Steve he ought to be concerned, even though he couldn't make it to 'concerned' just then. "That would be interesting."

Steve fought against the urge to want Tony to crack open the secret to stop the clock. It wasn't fair of him to want it, not when he was so scared of losing Tony, and that was the only thought in his head. If Tony chose to try to beat the clock, it had to be Tony's choice, not in the least bit his.

Had he known that the price for surviving long enough to make it to the love of his life was to outlive the love of his life, and everyone else he'd loved, then Steve wondered if he'd have made the same choices along the line. With Tony holding him, he wanted the answer-desperately wanted the answer-to be no, he would not change a damn thing. But even with Tony's arms holding him tight, Steve couldn't say with any certainty that would choose to live this life, had he known then what he knew now. In the old days, Steve had wanted this more than he could possibly put words to: wanted to have a family like this; a home like this. He'd wanted to lie in the arms of someone he loved, knowing that they loved him in return, in ways that he'd never had before. Steve pressed his eyes closed, and imagined the conversation between the shrimp, and the man the shrimp had become. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Steve Rogers who'd been would not sit on his laurels in asking Tony Stark to marry him. He wouldn't be scared by the real possibility of losing what he had, because he'd had nothing, and even though he'd gained _everything_ , that shrimp would have known that he could survive losing it all if he had to. The question was, with everything on the line, had Steve Rogers changed enough that he couldn't find that bravery in himself anymore?

If Tony put his mind to the obstacle of aging, Steve knew that he would find the answer. It was Tony Stark; there was no way he wasn't going to figure this out. But if Steve were to encourage it; if he were to at all influence Tony towards extending his life, it would mean that Tony would lose everyone else he loved, and Steve wasn't sure it was a choice anyone would ever want to make. Steve couldn't ask Tony to make that choice. Refused to ask Tony to make that choice, refused a little more with every time he questioned whether becoming a super soldier was the best choice he could have made. It was all too like the fear that kept Bruce from making a move, this constant divide that felt like it was selfish no matter what path he chose to take on it.

Tony cut through Steve's train of thought as if he knew what those thoughts were screaming at him, idly commenting, "You know, Natasha is as swift as a coursing river, has the force of a great typhoon, the strength of a raging fire, and is as mysterious as the dark side of the moon...and yet I do not think she would appreciate the implication that any of those attributes are exclusively manly."


	16. Chapter 16

"Tony...Tony, wake up for me. Come on, you can do it. Wake up, I'm beginning to think the sound of my voice is boring you."

"Mm?"

"Tony, are—are you finally conscious? I need you to listen to me if you are, love. I know...I know you don't want to, but you always do what I need you to. Work another miracle for me now, and give me a way to find you. Wake up and stay awake with me so I can find you. Please. I know I'm close, I just need a little more time."

"Th-The homing beacon...on the suit. Can't...much more than that."

"The suit's not with you, Tony."

"Ugh...Did someone give me tequila?"

"No, love. No alcohol was involved, and especially no tequila, I have seen your YouTube channel. What do you remember?"

"I-I was driving...we were gonna meet up for a picnic."

"...We did not have plans for a picnic, Tony."

"None that you knew about. I got Natasha to be sneaky and clear your schedule. It cost me more than you want to know about to do it, but we deserved a break."

"We really do. We'll take our break, just as soon as I find you. You owe me a road trip after all. Can you tell me where you are? Can you open your eyes and tell me what you see?"

"I can see a pool of blood, a lot of glass, and institutional carpeting. Pretty sure the blood is mine. Am I...I'm still trapped in the car. ...Well, what's left of the car. Which is not much from what I can see. I'm still fully buckled for safety, and I might end up having the scabs to prove it if I hang here for much longer. The blood seems to be coming out of my head-it's been bleeding for a while now. With the rug, I'm going to have to assume I ended up in a building. ...Do I want to know _how_ I ended up strapped into my car, apparently lodged in a building?"

"Abomination stormed Manhattan."

"Jesus tap-dancing Christ. I did not want to know that, actually. Is he back on ice?"

"Literally, actually. Hulk threw him into that industrial freezer attached to that warehouse we found importing Jotuns for Loki from the portal in Denmark last month."

"Please tell me the big guy made a quip about cooling off."

"You'd have to ask him; I was evacuating a bus Abomination threw into a fountain and trying to get you to come-to."

"Okay, well, I think I remember the noise at least...thought it was something gone terribly wrong with a travelling circus. He...he rampaged down the street...I didn't even have time to get to my suitcase suit. It was in the trunk."

"I'd be mad at you for not having easy access to it, but you're prone to doing drastic things when I'm mad. Like getting into a car crash with a goddamned sky scraper."

"Not to dig this hole any deeper, but you still sound a little mad."

"Mostly because the tracker you put in the suit is with the suit, with the other half of your car. Which leaves me with only a general sense of where you are, because your phone is unsalvagable, even by JARVIS's standards, and Iyou turned off the tracker in your comm/I."

"He tore my-that motherfu-"

"Tony, calm down. You're injured, you're bleeding, and getting angry isn't going to help the situation. Think of it this way: you'll buy a new car, and we'll work on it together."

"Meaning I will work on it and you'll sketch me in all my sexy, oil-covered glory?"

"Yes."

"Sold!"

"Now, you said industrial carpeting; do you see office supplies or anything to indicate what the building is?"

"I think I see a hole punch, so I'll go with office, but that brings up the worrying question of just how many fucking buildings he made holes _in_. Please tell me you and I can give Ross an atomic wedgie on behalf of the people of New York. That is a thing that needs to happen to that asshole."

"I think Bruce might want in on that. And Thor. And Nat and Clint. JARVIS might like to employ Dummy, You, and Butterfingers to do the job, as well and I think Phil might help cover it up."

"Heavy casualties, then, I take it?"

"Injuries so far; no deaths. And don't you fucking dare even think of being the first. We got lucky that most of the city is running on a skeleton crew for the holiday and half the office space down here is empty already."

"How's the team?"

"Well, obviously, collectively pissed would be an apt start. Mostly we're working on evacuation, but I sent Nat to help Bruce calm down since Abomination is not getting out of the freezer and Hulk is still raring for a fight. Our picnic is going to have to be put on hold, but I'm willing to use every trick in the book in order to get us some R&R."

"I'll write myself another rain check...At this point, I just want a shower and to go the fuck to bed, preferably with you in both."

"We can, eventually, arrange that, I think. First we have to go about dragging your bruised backside through Medical."

"Steve, why do you look for ways to hurt me?"

"Mostly for my own amusement, to be perfectly honest. I love making you do the sane things that you hate doing, it's a highlight of being in love with an actual madman."

"Knew it!"

"Tony, I can hear you through the phone line so do not even try to play innocent when I tell you to stop moving, you idiot."

"Then hurry up and find me. I'm bored, and we both know _that_ never ends well."

"You're also selfish; who said you were the only one I need to find?"

"Then I should get myself out and get down there to help."

"Anthony Edward Stark, I will make Thor sit on you."

" _That_ 'll help with the cracked ribs!"

"You did not include that in the sitrep. What else did you not include in the sitrep?"

"Well, I can't open my left eye for all the blood for starters. I think I've probably cracked if not fully broken my wrist. I'm not sure if it's the seatbelt or an actual broken collarbone—but, on the good side: as far as I can tell, my legs are fine, they're just numb from hanging out in this position-get it? Hanging out?"

"Your jokes are worse than normal; either you have a concussion or you're still trying to figure out a way to get out of the car and you're trying to talk over the noise of it."

"'Scuse you, Captain Wonderful, but I am insulted. My comedy is gold, even when concussed. ...Stop being silent at me, it's like you're _here_ and I can see the abject disappointment."

"Talk to me about the likelihood of killing yourself trying to get out of the car. Is it going to fall over?"

"Not thus far. Judging from the angle, it's wedged between the floor and ceiling, but I can quite get a good enough line of sight to tell how that happened."

"Don't push it, Tony. Wait until I get there or I may strangle you myself. Can you tell me the degree of the angle the car's tipped on?"

"I'd approximate it's around 110, maybe 120."

"How much of the front end is left?"

"Well, I'd guess the engine's probably a smear at this point. I can't feel whether the impact drove the nose inwards enough to be against my legs."

"Fuck..."

"I am kind of st-starting to find it hard to breathe, Steve. The seatbelt is too tight, and I can't exactly undo it until I find a way to not be a sudden shift in dead weight."

"I'm close, Tony. Don't you fall asleep on me here."

"That's not the usual request. Usually you bribe me to sleep."

"Yeah, well, soak it in 'cause I don't ever want to have to do this again. But keep trying to make me laugh, it might help you stay conscious."

"Aw, but you're grinning anyway, I can tell."

"You're not funny."

"Oh please: I am hilarious, you just don't have a sense of humour."

"I've stuck with you this long, haven't I?"

"Steve...I can hear movement in the building. Please tell me it's you."

"Tony?"

"Here! I'm here! Are you alone?"

"Not for long. We split up to look for you, but I'm going to need help to get you out of this safely. Jesus, this is...this is one for that Power Point Phil made on 'Ways You Do Not Want to Get Killed'."

"Well, hello, beautiful. Careful kneeling in the glass."

"You look...smashing."

"More like "smashed", but, darling, if you could look this good after a tangle with Abomination, you'd be even more impossible than you already are. Anyway, back to business; if you can catch me, I can cut the seatbelt. It's going to hurt any way we try to slice this mud pie, and I'd rather not push my luck that the car is gonna stay wedged like this for much longer."

"I'd like to at least wait until we have a stretcher or medical supplies of any kind before we try to move you, Tony. If the car starts to fall, then we'll deal with it, but for now, we don't _need_ to move, so let's not. I know you want to get out, but if your spine-"

"But just think of the cellphone shots of a worried Captain America carrying a broken and bleeding Tony Stark through the streets of Manhattan to get him to safety. And if my spine was hurt, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to wiggle my toes; right now I've got pins and needles from hell, but there is some movement happening. You ready? We're doing this now."

"If I say no, you're just going to do it anyway, and bank on my not wanting to see you dead to save you at the last second."

"You know me so well. We should totally date and go steady."

"It took me long enough to know you so well. Also, for the record, this is a fucking terrible idea. I'd expect this of Clint, not you."

"Hey! Clint does not have a monopoly on bad ideas in our freaky little family. Just think of it like Jenga; pull out a piece fast enough to make sure the car doesn't fall on our heads."

"An injured piece that's hooked into the car and probably shouldn't be moving."

"I believe in you."

"Well, that's reassuring. ...On three?"

"Nope! Doin' it now-counting's for losers!"

"Jesus fucking...Taking into account that there is a massive hole in the ceiling and I'm pretty sure they're never going to get the oil stains out of the carpet, that was cleaner than expected...Tony, I know it hurts but you've gotta stay awake. Talk to me. ...Think they're going to charge us for property damage?"

"Fucking Ross..."

"Preaching to the choir, love. I'm gonna put you on the desk in three, two, one."

"AGH! Okay, that...yeah, fuck that hurts literally everywhere. My _hair_ is fucking aching. Hey, have I told you today that I love you?"

"I love you, too. How hard did you hit your head? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"...Is this a trick question? Your hands are still under me, babe."

"My...shit-"

"Aw...Don't blush, gorgeous, we've all been there at some point. And you are now holding up three fingers. Do I pass and can I get a kiss in lieu of a good job sticker?"

"You can get as many kisses as you want when you're not covered in your own blood."

"Deal. You're gonna come to regret that later, fyi. Also, I wanted to tell you I love you anyway, it has nothing to do with the head injury, more that you make me relax."

"Do I? And how do I manage that?"

"Fucked if I know, never had it happen before, not enough data to form a hypothesis. Hey, grope me a little higher and to the left-"

"I'm trying to feel for broken bones."

"Oh, I know, but I still need you hands there. I have a question I've been wanting to ask and you'll get angry at me if I move enough to do this myself. There's a box in my inner pocket-and if there isn't any more, I may Hulk out, because it took me forever to pick the ring that would work for us."

"What the hell are you talking-"

"Steve Rogers, will you marry me? I'm not kidding, and I'm not that badly concussed. I've been carrying that ring in that box for months, and I'd greatly appreciate it if you felt me up some more to see if it's still there. The picnic was to steal you away from the city somewhere, do something sickeningly romantic, and see if this time I could work up the nerve to finally ask."

"Tony, you complete lunatic. Why the hell would you want to marry me?"

"Because you'd be the best bad idea I've ever had."

"God, that was a bad line."

"I'm concussed. I'd be embarrassed about it later, but I also have no shame. Are you gonna answer the question?"

"Maybe I want to wait 'til it's done right. Bended knee, soft jazz, candlelight. You know I'm a sucker for seeing you attempt romance."

"Listen, buddy; I do not "attempt"—I succeed."

"Sure you do, Tony."

"Hey, no obvious humouring of the gravely distressed, Steve."

"Distressed? Is-"

"Not only am I a breathing bruise, I just asked this incredible human being to marry me, but the asshole won't answer."

"Ah, you know I can see how that's distressing. But what makes you think he'd say no? You seem to be pretty incredible yourself."

"He's out of my league: I've just been waiting for him to figure that out, and I'm hoping being bound by the sanctity of marriage may slow the process."

"It's hard to think that he wouldn't feel that way about you, too."

"Maybe, but that's because he's a little deluded about me-which is probably caused by the sex and my glorious sense of humour-but the man's only fucking flaw is that he snores like a damned grizzly when he's overtired. I mean, he swears like a mechanic, so we're a perfect fit there; little bit of a possessive streak, but I happen to like that; didn't have much schooling for the sciences, but his gorgeous fucking brain picks up on things like a damned Swiffer, so he could probably put most first-year physics majors to shame by now. It's infuriating. He's so perfect sometimes that I might have accidentally forgotten I was holding a blowtorch once or twice..."

"You forgot-No, nope, nuh-uh, not going there...Why the hell would you stay with someone so infuriating?"

"Because I might be more than a little deluded about him, too."

"Well, shucks, that sounds like a perfect fit to me."

"So you think I've still got a shot?"

"I think you've got a full clip, probably an extra tucked into your boot, too."

"Hm, well that's good. Are the others headed our way yet? I'm really tired, Steve."

"They're coming. They'll be here soon. You still can't fall asleep on me yet, though. Not yet."

"I really want to marry you, Steve. I love you."

"Tony, don't you dare close those eyes on me right now. Not now."

"'ve only got use of the one right now anyway..."

"Tony, _no_. Do not fall asleep. Stay with me. You asked me to marry you, that means you don't get to leave me alone right now-you don't get to leave me alone ever, you hear me?"

"Hate leavin' you alone anyway. How much longer?"

"Minutes."

"Not giving a proper estimate? Tricky contractor tricks are unacceptable."

"Just stay with me."

"'m here. It'll be okay, Steve. You're here with me, so it has to be."

Tony Stark smiled a bloodied smile, his left eye swollen shut and crusted with blood from the gash across his cheek, and his right fluttering more and more. In the other room, the dust of their extraction was settling like waves of tha dull grey tide coming in. Steve forced himself to breathe; well aware that he could, because he was no longer the man who would choke on the air around him—but despite the fact that his lungs were stronger than they had ever been before, it felt as though he couldn't get enough air with the faltering quirk of Tony's mouth, the blood staining his hands, the smell of it staining the air under the dust, and the unsteady thrum of pulse pushed through Tony's veins by the light still valiantly shining in his chest. Tony's Rubik's cube ring box dug into the palm of Steve's hand as he clutched Tony's with one and the box that held his engagement ring with the other as if they were a tether that could anchor Tony to the world in the heart wrenching moments between one agonized draw of breath and the next. Then, for the first time in years, Steve found himself simply unable to breathe as he watched Tony drift closer to darkness, taking his light with him.


End file.
